How to Create Atmospheric Perspective in a Landscape Painting

How to Create Atmospheric Perspective in a Landscape Painting

In this blog post I am going to show you how you can create atmospheric perspective in a landscape painting as I show you how to paint this mountain valley scene.

What is Atmospheric Perspective?

Simply put, using atmospheric perspective is a way of creating the illusion of distance and depth in a landscape painting, for example making distant hills and mountains look like they are far away.

How to Paint Autumn Colours – Tips For Painting Trees and Leaves

How to Paint Autumn Colours – Tips For Painting Trees and Leaves

In this blog post I will show you how to paint this autumn scene that features willow and poplars trees and I will explain how to mix those autumn / fall colours.

Autumn is a wonderful time of year especially if you are a landscape artist, but autumn colours can be a challenge to paint. I hope in this blog post I can give you some ‘go to’ colour combinations for mixing autumn colours so you can confidently paint trees and foliage.

How to Paint Autumn Trees

How to Paint Autumn Trees

In this blog post I will show you how to paint autumn trees in this painting inspired by a place called Arrowtown in southern New Zealand. This area was planted with European deciduous trees including willows, poplars and sycamores and every autumn their leaves display vibrant beautiful colours.

I will show you the step by step process of how I created this art work.

How to Paint Light and Shadow in a Landscape

How to Paint Light and Shadow in a Landscape

In this blog post I will show you how to paint this landscape inspired by the mountains around the village of Glenorchy in southern New Zealand.

In this painting I will show you how we can use tonal values to create light and shadow. This painting features a contrast between the background hills and mountain that are bathed in the soft evening light, juxtaposed against the foreground which is in shadow.

How to Paint a Rural Mountain Scene

How to Paint a Rural Mountain Scene

In this blog post I will show you how to paint this beautiful rural mountain scene inspired by the Matukituki Valley in southern New Zealand.

The inspiration for this painting came from a plein air painting trip I went on with a friend. As we were painting the mountain view suddenly loads of cows started surrounding us and many of them were drinking from the stream.

The presence of the cows were a welcome addition as I was able to include them in my original plein air painting. It then inspired the studio painting which I am about to demonstrate to you now.

How to Paint a Rural Landscape – Tips For Mixing Grass Greens

How to Paint a Rural Landscape – Tips For Mixing Grass Greens

In this blog post I will show you how to paint this rural landscape that features some atmospheric spotlighting effects. This painting is inspired by the Northland region in northern New Zealand and it originally started as a plein air painting. I then took it back to the studio and added more details to it.

How to Paint Light in a Seascape

How to Paint Light in a Seascape

In this painting demonstration I will show you how you can create of light in a seascape painting. This painting is inspired by a place called Owhiro Bay on the coast of Wellington in New Zealand. The beach is south facing and as it is in the southern hemisphere the sun shines from the north and directly onto the breaking waves.

Breaking waves are easier to paint when they are backlit but they can still look great in paintings even when the sun is shining on them. In this painting I have used a spotlight effect to emphasise the breaking wave. The foreground is in a half shadow from a cloud. The cliffs in the mid ground are also light with part shade. This also adds interest to the painting.

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