Painting Foregrounds: Perspective Tips

Depth and perspective in paintings can be tricky at first for beginners.

But it gets a lot easier when you know and follow a couple of logical and simple tips and guidelines.

 

 

 

 

Simplify The Subject

 

Break it up into simplified segments.

Divide the scene into divisions of Background, Middleground and Foreground.

Straight away this helps you to identify more easily what to do, in each of these areas.

 

 

I’ve listed below some of the most important steps regarding painting the foreground.

 

1. Foregrounds generally will have warmer colours in front, ie scarlets, terracottas, oranges, golden ambers, olive

2. Foregrounds generally will have sharper, more in focus, harder edges

 
3. Foregrounds generally will have deeper stronger tonal values

 

4. Foregrounds generally will have more texture, details, variations, contrasts

 

 

 

(Keep in mind that the further away an object is,  it becomes less sharp, less detailed, less bright, contrasty, less textured and less varied.)

 

This example shows how dark the foreground is as well as being more sharp in focus than the background.

 

 

 

This example shows  how the tones are darker in the foreground, the edges are sharper, there is more detail, more contrasts, and there is more warmth in the colors in the foreground than the background.

 

 

 

This example shows the foreground being warmer, darker, more detailed, more textured, sharper edged than the background.