Saturday, March 12, 2011

Atmospheric Perspective in IA #77

The brand new issue of International Artist includes a feature that I wrote about the laws behind atmospheric perspective.
 
This is a basic principle used by every landscape painter, but there's more to it that meets the eye, so to speak. For example, the old rule "warm colors advance, cool colors recede" is only half true.

The article contains three images not included in my book Color and Light. Published for the first time is a plein air study from the north rim of the Grand Canyon and a Hudson Valley vista painted on location at Oak Hill.
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International Artist magazine

3 comments:

Michael Oxley said...

Thank you so much for all your teaching efforts! I've learned more this past year following your blog and buying your two books than I ever did in art school. You, sir, are an inspiration.

Unknown said...

stupid question, been confounding me for the last two years still cannot work it out, how do you define value as the image recedes,

I know it gets lighter and I know it goes bluer, is there a rule in place to define distance with the value?

So for example a mountain is 10 miles away, is the mountain at 20 miles way half the value of the 10 mile mountain?

Also is there a graduation for example from green to blue,

been sketching and baging my head in frustration,

hope you can help,

Rich

James Gurney said...

Rockhopper--that's a really interesting question. Let me think about it a bit before giving you an answer.