distance feeling?

[imFragrance]

I am having trouble with giving a distance feeling to nature, landscape paintings. It is easier to create distance / depth if you want to draw/ paint a street, etc. scene with the use of perspective rules. However, when it comes to a nature painting or drawing, i struggle. Horizontal line does not help me.. When i paint a nature scene which is full of grass field, it doesn't look like it should be. I cant give a distance feeling to paintings like that. How do you do that? shading, perspective ?? for example i want to paint a plain field of grass with a distance feeling... Oh and also placing thing on that scene is another problem..

[claude j greengrass]

Objects get more blue-grey and have softer edges as they recede. Overlap is the strongest visual clue to recession. Much stronger to colour and edges. I hope that helps.

I find it difficult to portray a valley or a beach as viewed from a cliff.

[La_]

using more warm colors in the foreground (and highlights)
using more cool colors in the background (and shadows)

crisp/sharper edges in the foreground
soft/blurrier edges in the background
(subtle transitions)

perspective - big 'tree' in the foreground
small 'tree' in the background
(again, subtle transitions)

these are the simplest, most helpful tools i've found in producing the illusion of distance

la

p.s. always consider the 'rule of thirds' when placing objects

[Aires]

Seeing is sometimes easier than than reading or hearing words. You might try looking at landscape photos on the internet - select ones with distant mountains and close up lakes, rivers or fields in the foreground. Better yet, look at nature and study the difference you see between distance and close up objects. You'll notice the farther away an object is the smaller, softer and mistier it looks while as things come forward they grow larger, crispier in outline and more vivid in color. So you work on using soft slate bluish tints and soft outlines for distance and gradually strengthen your colors as you come to the middle ground and finally, the foreground. Starting with a pool or puddle of paint color that suggests distance and gradually adding pigment as things come closer to you is an easy way to get started on creating distance. Blurring your edges, no hard lines in distance and controlling the strength of your paint mixes, should give you the feeling of distance very quickly.

[imFragrance]

Originally Posted by claude j greengrass

Objects get more blue-grey and have softer edges as they recede. Overlap is the strongest visual clue to recession. Much stronger to colour and edges. I hope that helps.

I find it difficult to portray a valley or a beach as viewed from a cliff.

good tip. I also heard that , for example grasses are lighter as they go further , is it right?

[imFragrance]

Originally Posted by La_

using more warm colors in the foreground (and highlights)
using more cool colors in the background (and shadows)

crisp/sharper edges in the foreground
soft/blurrier edges in the background
(subtle transitions)

perspective - big 'tree' in the foreground
small 'tree' in the background
(again, subtle transitions)

these are the simplest, most helpful tools i've found in producing the illusion of distance

la

p.s. always consider the 'rule of thirds' when placing objects

thank you !! I have hear rule of thirds but couldnt find a good tutorial which is easy to understand. Do you know any?

[La_]

Originally Posted by imFragrance

thank you !! I have hear rule of thirds but couldnt find a good tutorial which is easy to understand. Do you know any?

i googled 'the rule of thirds images' and got pages of
visual examples

and yes, grasses (etc.) get lighter as they move into the distance.

la

[Keith2]

Can you photograph one of your paintings and post it on this forum? You'll get more specific answers to your questions.

You mention that you want to paint a simple field of grass which has a sense of recession.

Make the greens in the foreground warmer by mixing ultramarine blue with cadmium yellow (a warm yellow orange). Paint the grass in the distance with ultra and lemon yellow (a cool yellow green). Adding white will cool it further.

Both these greens may look rather synthetic on their own, they can be made more realistic by adding a touch of cadmium red (a warm orange red) which is a complementary colour and partly neutralises the green.

Brush strokes in the foreground should be more vigorous and bigger than brush strokes for grass in the distance.

Painting a big expansive of featureless grass, and making it look convincing, is quite a challenge.

[imFragrance]

Originally Posted by Keith2

Can you photograph one of your paintings and post it on this forum? You'll get more specific answers to your questions.

You mention that you want to paint a simple field of grass which has a sense of recession.

Make the greens in the foreground warmer by mixing ultramarine blue with cadmium yellow (a warm yellow orange). Paint the grass in the distance with ultra and lemon yellow (a cool yellow green). Adding white will cool it further.

Both these greens may look rather synthetic on their own, they can be made more realistic by adding a touch of cadmium red (a warm orange red) which is a complementary colour and partly neutralises the green.

Brush strokes in the foreground should be more vigorous and bigger than brush strokes for grass in the distance.

Painting a big expansive of featureless grass, and making it look convincing, is quite a challenge.

Okay i will post one asap

[Keith Russell]

I guess I can't upload pictures from the iPad. Never mind...

[loft artist]

I use the basic Three.... Foreground Middle ground and Distance with a tonal difference of dark/ strong color of the foreground to light/ paler color distance it works for me .

Loft

[mv-Frank]

Originally Posted by La_

using more warm colors in the foreground (and highlights)
using more cool colors in the background (and shadows)

crisp/sharper edges in the foreground
soft/blurrier edges in the background
(subtle transitions)

perspective - big 'tree' in the foreground
small 'tree' in the background
(again, subtle transitions)

these are the simplest, most helpful tools i've found in producing the illusion of distance

la

p.s. always consider the 'rule of thirds' when placing objects

I think La has a lot of good suggestions. But it also depends how you paint your landscapes (impressionistic, abstract, representational, ...). And what level you are at.
I would like to offer a different perspective than La's comment regarding the suggestion of using warmer colors in the foreground and cooler colors as objects recede.
If you are painting in representational type of painting, and if it's a sunny day, the highlights are always warm, and the shadows, typically, are cool, and that's in the foreground. The closer the tree, the more the shadows are warmer, due to the fact the viewer can see the reflected warm light.
If it's an overcast day, then typically the highlights are cooler and the shadows warmer.
And yes, as objects recede into the distance, the highlights lose their warm color mix and in the very far distant, come close to the distance shadow color.
Just a thought...hope it's helpful-
mv-Frank

[Avena Cash]

For me, I work with the concept of making things further away "unimportant" in addition to the tools mentioned above.

My paintings have zones of importance and zones of unimportance. Perhaps that is the wrong word, since negative space or quiet space is all important, but hopefully you get the idea. Making the foreground really come forward is equally critical to distance. Making the middle ground settle between the two... Drawing the eye to the right perception of these other areas will leave the distance behind where it belongs. (This is just another angle for looking at exactly the same strategies. This kind of shift in viewpoint is really useful to me, though.)

I don't actually work with far distance, I work with vibrating shallower space. It's what I like. But when I have worked on making distance, I always made sure it had enough unimportance to weaken it. Softer edges, cooler grayer color, simpler shapes. You can use some lines within your value shifts or explicitly painted: a bend or shift in suggested line can improve the perception of depth. A diagonal becomes a sharper diagonal in the foreground, eases toward horizontal as it recedes. This just depends on the piece and painting style.

Value studies can help, too. You can focus on the tool of contrast, hard in foreground, minimized in distance.

[0chre]

This might help.