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 Blog #2 Atmospheric Perspective
One of the most common problems my students have is with perspective. In this blog I’ll discuss atmospheric perspective. (Linear perspective will be the focus of a future newsletter.) The brain and how it works in regards to how and what we see always amazes me. It’s almost like our brain refuses to believe what we are seeing. The effects of atmosphere and the degree to which they effect things is something painters have to learn to see. This fact, that we always need to be open to learn from life and that we can never assume to know what color or value something is, is what keeps our work fresh and ourselves ever humble.

If you want objects in a still life to feel like they are sitting deep in a 3 dimensional space they need to look different than objects in front. If you want to paint a landscape where things in the distance are even much farther away you also need to paint distant shapes much differently than anything in the foreground. No matter the genre the same rules apply. Background shapes should have softer edges, less chroma, and are effected by objects or things around them. The quantity of distance should be felt by lowering the chroma and having every thing effected by the color of light and shadow and amount of air.

In a still life the surrounding wall, table top, objects, and amount of air will have a reflective effect, giving everything in the distance some similarities. In a landscape, the properties of the air can take a dark green mountain and make it pale cool grey depending on how far away it is. A red brick building in the distance might be a pale warm grey but a strong red/orange close up.

Edges are also heavily effected with distance. A strong or sharp edge is an eye catcher and works well where you want it but the same edge becomes a soft blur from far away. In still life, soft or blurred edges describe less important and distant objects. In landscape, think of a soft cloud of light grey/blue blanketing things far away. The farther away something is, or the more moisture in the air, the stronger influence that pale grey/blue becomes.

It’s very helpful to use an "isolator" to see color. I use a mid tone grey cardboard and punch a series of holes punched in it. You can also use the  center hole of a view catcher.  I use a single hole to look at one color or two holes to compare two colors or values. The series of 5 holes in my cardboard held up to isolate spots in the sky or a wall in the distance will make it clear that everything is markedly different than our naked eye sees on its own. It is always a surprise to see how one color in a still life will effect objects or the table around it. Our naked eye doesn’t pick up the degree of that effect but the isolator reveals it loud and clear. I’ve had many students paint a distant tree dark green until I have them look through an isolator to discover it’s much closer in value and color to the mid tone grey of the isolator.

Probably the most difficult issue is seeing your painting as a whole with values and colors not as they are but in relationship to other things. As we stare at something to paint our retina begin to take in more light, things becomes lighter in value and with more details. It becomes hard to tell the value of one object in relation to another. That's why one always needs to squint, close your eyes for a moment, or turn away and re-look at the whole picture you’ll see a hierarchy of value, chroma, and edges that relate to where things sit in space and that’s what should guide our decisions. You are the director of your painting and can make clear to your viewer how much distance you want to create in your work.

Take a few minutes in the beginning planning stages of your painting to pay attention, even make notes, to the hierarchy of values, chroma, and edges and you’ll have a much better painting with believable atmosphere and distance.