Is it important to add depth to your paintings?
Is it important to add depth to a painting?
When I decide what topic to cover for each of my Patreon videos, I often think back to what aspects I struggled with the most when I started. I find this approach particularly helpful in breaking down each of the stages of art creation into easily manageable chunks. So it was with this approach that I decided to focus on one commonly challenging aspect: adding a sense of depth to a scene to a scene. But is this really necessary?
Some of the best observational paintings I’ve seen have all felt ‘real’ in some sense and I think a lot of this comes down to the three-dimensional feeling they convey. You can get this by an understanding of perspective but you can also do it by creating a clear division between the background and foreground. Aside from looking pretty neat, it also makes it feel more real than a photo, in a weird way. Allow me to explain.
If you’ve seen Star Wars you may not have noticed the liberal use of handmade matte paintings that were used as backdrops. It may not look like it, but many of the wide-angle scenes on the Death Star were paintings - where the artist used a series of depth-creating techniques to simulate soldiers receding into the distance. Weirdly, these techniques actually work better at conveying depth that a digital render does, as our eyes ‘fill in the gaps’ to create that sense of depth.
So is it important to add depth to a painting or a sketch? Absolutely. Even if you don’t want to focus on it, having a solid understanding of these techniques can really allow you to pick and choose which you want to use and give any of your art creations that 3D effect.
Join the Creator membership on Patreon below or click the link to watch the video on Creating Depth.
Thanks everyone,
Matt