Steps to creating Depth in a Painting

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Many of us can be seen at museums or at gallery exhibits with our noses just a tad too close to a painting's surface, examining each stroke, squinting and going back and forth. We must look ludicrous to the casual observer, yet ask a fellow artist and they will say right away this must be another artist examining the applied techniques.

I have a very bad memory and like to keep binders full of articles on technique, which I refer to periodically. This brings me to a wonderful article I just recently read, featured in an old 1998 Artist

[Enzie Shahmiri]

This is

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Please note how the artist has used all the outlined elements to create a sense of space for the sitter, although there is such little room in the entire picture plane.

1. Even though the ears should be the same size the slight tilt of the head enables the artist to paint the other ear smaller. By slightly varying the size, one ear seems to recede more.

2. The purest color is towards the center and diminishes as the planes of the head recede. One ear can hardly be distinguished as such. The color used is not only extremely muted, but also is in the same value of the background.

3. Look at the detail of the beard. Our right side shows more detail of the facial hair then the left side. If you had this man stand this close to you, you would probably be able to see more of an equal amount of distinguishable facial hair, yet it seems that the artist has chosen to give less detail to enhance depth of the space in which he has placed this individual.

4. The hair, beard and clothing show more detail on the side closest to us and diminish in intensity as you follow the slight tilt of this man

[Timothy C. Tyler]

I think Jo Ann does a great job with design by the way.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Tim, you are absolutely right, her still lifes are wonderful.

Please feel free to add to this thread if you can think of other little tricks that can create a sense of depth in a painting.

[Steven Sweeney]

Though the original list above dealt with capturing the effects of distance, this addition (or sidebar) goes a little more toward creating the effect before the fact. This is a very basic observation, part of any instructor's syllabus, but I think it bears mention, as there will likely be those who haven

[Timothy C. Tyler]

Enzie, I might just mention that colors will drop out in a certain order in the distance (outdoors) even on cloudy days. Yellows fade first folowed in order through the spectrum to purples. This is logical but many times artists forget this. Bouquereau painted some nice "distances" with this in mind.

[Jeff Fuchs]

During my recent museum visits, I paid attention to values. Distance also steals values.

A more distant object will have a narrow range of values. It may be a brightly lit object, or it may be in shadow, but it will not have a full range of values, while the main subject often does.

Sometimes this device is used on closer objects, not to convey distance, but to de-emphasize them.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Thank you gentlemen for adding more points to this thread and making it a valuable learning source.

[Minh Thong]

Yellows fade first folowed in order through the spectrum to purples.

Hmmmm ... I've never come across that in my studies with the Holy Trinity of Loomis, Faragasso, and Grado.

Thanks Tim!

Minh