Transcripts
1. Introduction to Depth: I have little to no doubt that the depth of a landscape is its most important aspect. Now, what even is depth? Depth is an illusion, an illusion that fools the human eye into thinking it's looking at something distant rather than something that's close, that's right in front of them at the flat surface, which is the painting or the photograph itself. Artists strive to achieve depth in their paintings because depth makes paintings pop-up more and it makes them attract more attention. It makes them appear as not just a flat surface but sort of a window into the world that the artist captured. Artists often strive to capture more than just a visual representation of what's in front of them. But they try to go beyond that. They try to capture more than just a landscape, more than just nature. They try to capture a specific moment, a feeling, and sometimes even a story. Now depth can accomplish all of that by itself. But this wonderful illusion is definitely a major part of it all and a basis for the rest. No matter what you seek to achieve in your paintings, depth can only improve them. It is depth that makes paintings and pictures pop-out attract more attention, get sold more often, and get more likes on social media. No matter your current skill level, I think you can learn a lot from this class and improve along the way. I made sure that techniques I'll tell you about are easy to remember and simple to apply so you don't need to take notes or anything of that sort. What I should mention as well is that the techniques are universal. That means it can be applied to any painting or drawing technique and also the photography. The class project, which I'm going to talk about a little bit more in the next video, is very simple and you don't need any extra equipment, the follow along. Thank you very much for giving me a chance and choosing my class. If you'll join me, I'll see you in the first lesson.
2. Landscape Analysis: For our class project, I would like you to find a picture of a landscape or a landscape painting that you like. Now, this can be any picture of a landscape. It can even be a bad one. We just need a picture in which we can observe what makes the landscape deeper or flatter. I'll be using my own pictures and in them, I'll show you the ways to distinguish elements which make a picture deeper or flatter. By observing what makes the landscape better or worse, we can learn which of these aspects to apply to our own landscapes in order to improve them and in order to make them deeper. When you have your picture ready, we can continue along to the first lesson in which we will start with the basics, which are distinguishing the layers of a landscape.
3. Layers: Now I opened up a couple of pictures in Photoshop. If you don't have Photoshop, that's fine. You can do pretty much the same thing in MS Paint or any other editing tool or you can even just trace the picture on a piece of paper and work that way. As the name of this lesson says, we're going to learn about distinguishing layers here. I've got a pretty basic picture of a landscape right here and what are we going to do now is divide it into layers. The first layer is pretty much always going to be this sky. You can just block it out with some red. The sky being the first layer is the farthest and therefore the deepest layer in the painting. After the sky is usually one of three things, it's mountains, hills, or forests. It's hills in this picture so we can block them out in blue that's the second layer. Beyond that we have some water which we can paint green and in the foreground we have a tree which we can paint yellow. Distinguishing layers like this is a very simple thing. Your picture might have more or less layers but there's usually four and what distinguishing these layers allows us to do is to study them individually. Now if I clear the picture again, we can talk about our first rule of depth and the rule is: layers get brighter the farther they are. As we can clearly see, the sky is the brightest layer. We could split the hills into two layers, if we wanted to, because in this picture there's this second layer of hills which is a little brighter than the ones in front of them. Now the water reflects the sky so it's a bit bright but if you look at these not shiny parts, they're darker than the actual hills. The water itself gets darker as it comes closer to the observer's perspective and the foreground tree is the darkest one. This is one of the rules you have to take into account when painting a landscape. As we know while air is transparent it's not invisible and as we look further and further into distance, the layer of air accumulates in its thickness and it starts to become this milky white color which you can see on the furthest layer of hills. When you paint the landscape and you make the farthest layers bright and darker as they come closer, you make the human eye think that it's looking at something distant because it's looking through such a thick layer of air. Because the farthest layers are becoming milky, just like they do in real life. Here we can see a different picture which adheres to the same rules. The sky is the brightest, the hills that are in front of the sky are completely milky, bright and obscured. The trees in front of the hills are still milky, but a little bit less and they're considerably darker. The vegetation in front of the trees is almost not milky at all and it's even darker than the trees. The water in its not shiny parts is also darker than the vegetation in front of them. The foreground, which is, in this picture, even more vegetation, is even darker than the rest of the picture especially in these closest parts in which it's almost completely black. When taking pictures of landscape this illusion happens by itself but the composition of the picture still needs these layers to make this illusion more pronounced. These layers are very important and it's important that they're distinct and distinguishable from each other. Now when painting, it's really good to paint the sky first. That's because the sky is the brightest layer and therefore it sets the level of brightness for all the other layers. What I mean by that is that when you paint the sky in this particular color, then you know that the hills in front of it have to be a bit darker and the trees in front of it will be darker again and so on and so forth. If we now look at an actual painting we can see that the painter actually followed these rules. We can see that the furthest layer is very bright. The trees in front of it are a little bit darker and there's more trees, they get more darker as they get closer. The grass follows the same principle and the tree, which is actually the foreground subject, is very dark. Now for a personal tip from me, I think it's really good to start very bright as, when you get closer and closer, you might start to run out of darker and darker colors and then your last few layers might end up pitch black which will achieve the same effect but might hurt their composition of the painting in the end. So watch out for that. Now, this rule doesn't mean there can't be any bright spots in front of a layer that's already bright. There definitely are and should be, but mostly in the form of highlights which are bright spots on the layer that is already dark. We can see some highlights in the grass here, the white spots on the flowers or the yellowish spot in the tree leaves right here. These definitely enhance the picture and don't hurt the depth of a composition as long as they don't overpower the darkness of the layer itself. To recap, the biggest takeaway from this lesson should be your rule number 1 which is: things get darker and darker as they come closer to the front of the picture. Now that we understand how to distinguish layers, we can learn more about the individual layers. Please join me in the next lesson, which is about making individual layers distinct.
4. Individuality: To come back to our class project, at this point, you should have something that looks like this. I simply want you to identify the individual layers on your picture and observe how the layers get darker as they come closer to the front of the picture. Now if you're working with a painting, this must not be true, as artists sometimes forget to follow this rule and make some of their front layers brighter than the ones behind them. But nonetheless, if you have this part ready, we can continue on to learn about the individual layers. If we take a look at this picture, we can see that a large part of the picture is occupied by a single layer, which is this layer of grass. Now this layer is something we would call a horizontal layer. While this entire space is a singular layer, it occupies a wide and deep horizontal area. That means that while this point, for example, and this point are both on the same layer, they are still very far apart in distance, and this one is obviously further than this one. Now as we said before, things get darker as they come closer to the front of the picture. The rule does apply to these horizontal layers as well. As you can clearly see, the areas over here in the distance are much brighter than these areas in the foreground. Make sure to apply these rules to these horizontal layers. Now on the other hand, we have the mountains and the forest over here and here. Compared to the field of grass, these mountains don't occupy a horizontal area, but a vertical area. We're going to call them vertical layers. To put this is in a better perspective, it's nice to imagine the landscape from the side view. Let's say this is the ground layer and we're looking at the picture from this side. Now the mountains are in the back. There's some hills in front of them, Some trees over here and the rest is just grass. If we look at it like this, this is the horizontal layer and these are the vertical layers. Again, the easiest way to recognize a horizontal layer is by the fact that you can find two points on it, which are obviously very far apart from each other, which you can't do on this mountain. They're still a little bit apart from each other, but if we went to the side view again, then this and this point is obviously further from each other than this and this point. Now why is it important to distinguish these two types of layers? It's because they behave differently. As you can see, these distant mountain layers and tree layers, they get brighter and less distinct as they go down. Just compare how dark this mountain is at the top and how milky it is at the bottom. This effect occurs, again, because of air and because of fog. Heavy air pollution and fog humidity accumulates closer to the ground, therefore obscures the vertical layers in their lower parts. This effect occurs naturally and it's easy to see in any landscape picture and it can be most obviously observed in the sky where the color shift towards horizon is completely obvious. Now as we already mentioned, it is important to make individual layers distinct. What's great about this effect is that it does so for us. The fact that vertical layers get brighter as they go down means that there's greater contrast between layers that are far and layers that are close. I very roughly painted another layer over this picture so it can be made more obvious. Now if you look at these three layers, they're all the same color, but due to the natural effect, thanks to which, they get brighter as they go downwards, they can easily be distinguished from each other. Try to remember this rule when painting and make vertical layers like the mountains and hills brighter towards the bottom, and in that way help distinguish them from the layer in front of them. If we use the healing brush tool to get rid of these differences, we can see how much this hurts the composition as by having no difference in color between the front and back layers, we lose all the depth in the picture. In a good composition, the horizontal layer does not adhere to the same rules and it gets darker instead of brighter, just like we can see in this picture. To recap, make sure that vertical layers get brighter as they go downwards, as air pollution and fog naturally gathers closer to the ground. On the other hand, make sure that the horizontal layers get darker as they come closer to the front of the picture and therefore get darker as they go downwards. If you follow these rules correctly, you'll end up with a natural looking picture, in which you can distinguish individual layers and make them look apart from each other, therefore, giving the landscape an illusion of depth. Always remember that the sky is also a vertical layer and it follows the same rule. Never allow your sky to be a single hue from top to bottom. Instead go for gradient full of contrast that encloses the picture. Again, always remember that while these rules lead to a good composition and a great sense of depth, they aren't necessarily followed in every painting, in every picture. If they aren't followed in your picture, take note of it and try to find out how you would improve the picture by applying these rules. If we're finished with that, then we're done with understanding the layers and we can move on to composition. Composition is a great subject of its own that goes even beyond depth, but we're going to discuss a couple of aspects that affect depth, especially in the next lesson.
5. Composition: There's a lot to know about composition, but keep it short, I'm only going to tell you about the most important rules and techniques that have the biggest impact on depth. First of all, we're going to start off with a rule of thirds. What the rule of thirds says is that every picture or painting of a landscape should be split into two parts. One of them should consist of a single-third of the entire picture, and the second part should consist of the other two-thirds of the picture. This is a decision that you do even before you start painting because everything else in the composition depends on it. Now, as we all know, a landscape most often consists of the sky and land and the point of this rule is to dedicate the bigger part of the picture to either of these two, while dedicating the rest, to whatever is left. For example, one-third of the picture would be the sky and the rest would be land, as we can see here. You can also split the picture between the foreground and the rest of the picture by the same rule. By doing this, we choose the main subject of the landscape by giving it more space, and therefore, we guide the viewer's attention towards what's important. This is a very vital step and it is followed by a massive majority of landscape artists. It is very effective and simple to remember and apply, so put it to good use. Some composition simply split the subjects down the middle, which often works with reflections, for example, but I think it's safer and better to almost always stick with the rule of thirds. Secondly, make sure the corners of the picture are dark and dull. Not much more to say about that. The corners of a landscape should be without anything that will distract the viewer from looking at the center. This doesn't mean that important subjects can start from the corner of your screen quite the opposite, they often will, but make sure they're generally dark towards the corners. This makes sure that the picture is focused, so to speak, and makes it appear more composed, less random. Next, try to have leading lines in your picture. These are sharp contrasting ridges that again guide the attention of the viewer. It's hard to explain, but they also help the viewer perceive the landscape more easily. They give perspective that a size and scope of the subjects in the painting by being a reference for them. This makes the picture more immersive and deeper. It is also great if these leading lines intersect with important subjects of the landscape to make them more obvious. These lines are most often the border between sky and land or sky and sea. For example, they can be very effective in a painting of a sunset or other sky-focused pictures, but also pictures that have a very distant main subjects such as a mountain. Nonetheless, it's always great to have them in your composition. Now last but not least, my favorite thing to do to enhance depth is to have a foreground subject. After most of your layers, except for the foreground are done, don't be afraid to cover substantial part of them with a foreground subject. Having a massive tree or silhouette or some other natural object in front of all the other layers, really bring the painting together. Simply by being in the front, it pushes everything else back and it makes the painting incredibly more deeper. I can't say enough how great this is to do as I often see landscape paintings that are fine, but could be much deeper and generally better just by adding a foreground subject. Is really easy to do as well and creating them might improve your detail-making skills. Just remember our rule number one and make sure the foreground layer is very dark, otherwise, it will blend in with the mid-ground and add no depth to the painting at all. To illustrate how well this works, I removed the foreground subject from this painting, see how the picture becomes that much flatter without it? I can't really overstate how great foreground subjects are, so please try to use them in your composition and see what happens. Thanks so much for sticking around this far, in the next and final lesson before the recap, we'll discuss color and contrast, the final ingredients to a landscape with stunning depth.
6. Contrast: Leonardo da Vinci once said that a painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light. I love this quote, and you should remember it to remind you of how important contrast is in a painting or a picture. We already talked about how important the color and brightness shift from foreground to background is but now let's talk about the color range in individual layers. The base of a new layer we create should almost always be very dark and while yes, is going to get brighter as we put details on it, it is vital to keep some of that darkness on the final picture to give us contrast and that's what I mean by color range. It is the gradient of colors ranging from the darkest black to the brightest white. When making a picture, we want this gradient to be as white as possible as long as it still looks natural. It takes a bit of practice to find that sweet spot of a contrasting yet natural-looking color range when painting. But here's how I do it. For every subject, let's say a mountain. I work with two sets of colors: undertones and highlights. I mix the undertones first. These colors are dark, usually gray, blue, brown, black, and dark green colors. The brightness of these undertones is based on how far in the picture they are, as we learned early on in the class, the closer, the darker, the farther, the brighter. The undertones I've used as a base color for the brighter highlights to be laid on top of. They present the shadowy dark areas that are not exposed by sunlight. After I'm happy with the undertones, I create the highlights in a way in which they complement the undertones. I do that by mixing some of the same colors I used for the undertones, but making them brighter and more contrast fill instead of dull and dark with the use of vibrant colors like yellow or bright red. Using the same group of colors for both undertones and highlights keeps the final result from looking unnaturally contrast fill while achieving the desired color range. But why do we even want to achieve this? Well, because again, this gives the painting depth, you guessed it. If we can reference bright spots to dark spots and vice versa, we gain a contrast that gives both sides is stronger value. By doing this, we not only have distance between the layers of the landscape but also have a range in the individual layers themselves, pushing the depth further in yet another dimension. It is very important to practice restraint when painting highlights as overpowering the dark undertones by highlights completely will destroy your color range. Don't kill all your darkness when creating highlights and make your color range as wide as possible by having contrast in each layer. Don't forget about this even when painting clouds. Clouds are highlights as well, and the sky is the dark undertone for them. Don't cover the entire sky white and leaving some of those darker blues and grays to give the clouds contrast and depth.
7. Recap: So it's time to recap. First of all, the layers must get progressively darker, the closer they get to the front of the picture. This is perhaps the most important rule as making foreground bright and background dark, will make any picture seem unnatural and flat. Next, notice which layers are horizontal and which are vertical then make the vertical ones, especially the sky and mountains brighter as they go downwards closer to the ground. Do the opposite for horizontal layers, which instead get darker as they go down towards the front of the picture. This gives depth to individual layers, but more importantly, it makes it much easier to make layers appear separate and gradually coming apart from each other. A composition, remember the rule of thirds, darken your corners, have leading lines in the foreground subject in your picture. Once again, never neglect the foreground subject as it is perhaps the easiest and most effective way to make a flat painting deep, as long as the foreground subject is dark enough. When mixing colors ensure your color range looks natural by using the same base colors for both undertones and highlights, but introduce as much contrast between the two as possible. Protect the color range in individual layers by not allowing your highlights to kill all the dark spots and vice versa. In order to have light, there needs to be darkness. That will be it, I think now you should have a very solid grasp of how depth is created in landscape and also how it's destroyed. Nothing would make me happier than if you would post your improved landscape projects under this class and share them with your friends as well. I hope what you create will make you happy and fulfilled, and that you'll never stop improving. Landscapes are beautiful windows into a bowl created by you and there is never enough of them. So go ahead and make one that'll make you proud. Thanks so much for joining me and I hope you will accompany me in other classes in the future as well. My name is Daniel and I wish you a beautiful day. Goodbye.
Daniel Šolc, Landscape Artist
