Chapter 6 | VAGUE!

For paintings and drawings with a distant view, atmospheric perspective is often used. The atmosphere (air/mist etc.) ensures that objects that are far away become vaguer, even in real life. In my example, the mountains far away are drawn increasingly lighter and vaguer.

Exercise 1: make a small drawing (maximum 15 x 15 cm.) of a hilly landscape in which you draw everything further away increasingly vaguer.

In my example, the zigzag effect also provides depth: on the left in the foreground is a figure, just behind that on the right a road over a hill, then another hill on the left, behind that a hill on the right etc. Each hill overlaps another hill behind it. In this way you connect foreground and background. You often encounter this effect in landscape paintings.

Exercise 2: make a small drawing (maximum 15 x 15 cm.) of buildings drawn as flat surfaces, in which you use the zigzag effect and atmospheric perspective to create depth. It doesn’t have to be with flight lines/vanishing points/horizon etc.

Figures strongly in the foreground on the right or left are also called wings. More about that in the next chapter.