Painting Air-The Illusion of Dimension
When I first began painting I was concerned about making stuff. Teapot spouts and handles, eyes and noses, trees and houses. My focus was on painting the things correctly then filling in the background around the stuff.
I have been fortunate to have some generous mentors in my life. One artist friend would come over to critique my portraits saying “The figures look great but you are painting around them, you need to paint the air.”
“Say what?”
She would sit with me while I fiddled with the background, shaking her head until one day I made a mark on the background where I dragged the pastel stick on its side up to the edge of the head, lifted it then continued the stroke on the other side. I will always remember what my friend said to me next “That’s it, you did it! If you touch what you just painted I will break your arm!” She is a peaceful person so I took her remark seriously. What was it I had done that was different than before? I had painted “through” the portrait instead of around it and the 2 dimensional surface took on the illusion of depth. After that I was hooked, dimension and air became the focus of my art.
Painting dimension creates an illusion of light and space. It’s easy if you think of your painting like stage scenery where there is a foreground, a middle ground, and distance. Each plane has its own quality but they work together to create a complete setting. The depth of illusion can be shallow like in a portrait with a backdrop, or the depth can be vast, such as portraying a landscape vista. No matter the depth, addressing the following visual elements will help create atmosphere in your paintings.
Overlap – Overlapping objects in correct perspective immediately lets the viewer know that one thing is in front of the other. I find it interesting that when people paint “things” they will often line them up on the same horizon line.
Size – as objects go back they get smaller.
Value – distance brings values closer together
Color- Colors dull and lighten as they recede. A highly saturated red/ yellow in the foreground will become a lighter and bluer red as it recedes. Painting an equally saturated color in the background and foreground will place them on the same plane and flatten the depth in the painting.
Edges- the transition between color values are critical to creating the illusion of depth. The eye will focus on areas where there is a big difference in adjoining values; this is called a hard edge. The eye will pass over areas where the values are close together; this is referred to as a soft edge. This is why an artist must choose where to put the detail in their painting carefully. Artists tend to paint details with lots of sharp transitions. If there are too many hard edges in the different depths of field the eye will jump around the painting and the sense of atmosphere will be destroyed.
This is a short synopsis of the visual tools you can use to create depth. Once you understand how to apply them effectively it becomes a skill that sticks with you, like learning to ride a bike. When you see how to create dimension will never fuss over “stuff” again.
A self portrait by Anders Zorn, showing his "ish" palette
Here is the palette, ivory black, yellow ocher, and venetian red. I added a touch of cadmium red medium into the hat at the end to give it a pop of color.
The background is in and I check the composition by placing it in a frame. The hands have not been painted yet and the warm under-painting makes them glow compared to the surrounding cool tones.
Close up of the hands in the finished painting. 
Close up of the finished painting. I spend a lot of time working edges and sculpting the form. At the end I mixed a tiny bit of cadmium red medium into the venetian red to make the front of the hat brighter.
The final painting, "Departure" 30x20 oil
