 Hello and welcome to Monet Cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins. We're gonna have some fun today and if you're new here please subscribe and hit that little bell icon to be notified of future videos. Welcome to Monet Cafe. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and I'm excited to bring you this video that I think is going to really make a difference in your artwork especially if you're a beginner. These are some of the basic principles of art that help us to create the illusion of depth in our painting. So I'll be giving you five easy ways to create depth in your artwork. And by the way I'm wearing the new Monet Cafe apron with the new logo design on it. I have people asking me about the apron so I like to share that it's available in the description section of each video. It has these great pockets. It's washable. It's got this adjustable strap. It's awesome. I also am wearing the Monet Cafe Earth Colors bracelet and it has the essential oil beads on it. They're little lava rocks multicolored where you can put your essential oils on them and just smell so fragrant all day with a little Monet Cafe charm. Also in the about section of this video. Okay that's enough of the commercial. Let's get started. What we're doing as artists is we are taking a three-dimensional world and representing it our own interpretations often on a two- dimensional surface. And even though we can interpret things there are certain rules that if we don't get them right it pretty quickly will be represented as poor artwork or amateurish. So with these five easy steps you're going to be having a head start on your art career already and understand these things more clearly. Here I've made five equal frames to be able to share each one of these easy methods to create depth and I'm going to label them right now. So here they are value, color, temperature, detail and size. And for each of these I want you to imagine you've been transported to this beautiful mountain scene. We're literally physically standing there and seeing how the laws of physics behave in our world. So not that these are in order of importance but I do sort of feel I talk about value all the time and this is one of the most important things that I think we can do to get that sense of depth in our artwork. So let's first talk about value with our mountain scene in mind. All right with this simplified, very simplified landscape let's talk about value. Now what I said before is value is the difference between light and dark and the rule of value is that value typically is darker in the foreground and gets lighter in the background. So it would behave, I'm just going to use some color totally void of color. This is just literally black to white. All right with this general value scale in mind things get lighter in the distance. We also need to consider what the object is that we're giving either color or value to and as a rule of thumb things that are vertical, a vertical structure like a tree, the mountains will have a darker value and things that are on a flatter plane will have a lighter value. Now the reasoning for this is kind of easy. It's because of the way the sun is shining down on things. Sun shines down on a flat plane and the light reflects whereas it doesn't shine down. It might shine down on some of the branches and the tops of the trees, but typically they're darker. So we do want to keep in mind that things that are closer, let's just talk about the trees here, the things that are closer are going to be darker in value. So let me go ahead with this tree right here and let me just apologize for my pastel. Some of these, I don't use grays a lot and some of these are still have some little ridges on them. Okay so our initial tree right here is going to be a little darker in value because it's vertical and it's closer. Now let's talk about these trees back here. They are further away. They're going to be a little lighter in value. So let's grab this gray right here. I think this is, yes okay. So because these trees are further away, now remember I did say this is easy steps so that's why I'm not doing a real complicated painting or anything. This is just for learning purposes. So that already gives you the feeling that those trees are a little further away. Now we know that the mountains are further away than the trees so I'm going to lighten them up even a little bit more and there's some, you know, there's some things that you can do with color. All this kind of comes together but I'm trying to break them down into their basic forms or their basic concepts. Now here's the last one let's get these. They're super far away. Alright now the sky is typically the lightest thing in the scene and the ground is often lighter too. So let's talk about, I'm going to leave the sky as the value of the paper. Alright so it's it's super bright because you know that's a source of sun unless it's nighttime and even night skies are typically lighter than the landscape. So let's talk about this grassy area. If for example we had some grasses growing and receding back into the distance, all of these kind of come into play right now so I'm going to try to keep it just a value but if we had some grasses the distant grasses are going to be lighter. Alright so let me even go lighter than that. This is right here okay so we've got these grasses way back here and I can't help but talk about some of these other ones but I'm not going to do it. Okay I'm just going to gently get some grasses in here. Now they're gradually going to get darker. I'm just putting some down but they're gradually going to get darker as they get closer. So let's get some here. Like I said it's hard not to talk about the other ones because you know size plays into it, detail plays into it but it's all hopefully going to come together. Alright so we've got some grasses growing up here and then like I said they gradually get darker as you get closer and often too when grasses are really tall and you're kind of an lower positioning you can actually see like down in the roots of the grasses so it gets even darker. Alright so sometimes down by the trees a little darker maybe a little shadow. So that's just in general how value creates a sense of depth. Okay let's move on to the next one. We'll talk about color and another name for color is hue. That just means the particular color. It's red, it's blue, it's green but what I'm talking about here is the intensity of color and the way color works again with the laws of our world is colors get less intense as they recede. So as they come forward they are more intense and as they recede they are less intense. I'm just going to read right here from the color wheel. If you don't have a pocket color wheel this is a great handy very inexpensive little tool and it has so much information on it. So what I'm referring to is the intensity or chroma. Chroma is the word that has to do with the intensity of that color. The brightness or dullness of a color. To expound a bit further let's take a closer look. On the outer ring of this color wheel is the pure color or the color with the most intensity. Pure color. The next ring in is that color with some white added which is called tint. The next ring in is what's called tone. It is the hue or the color with gray added and the last one is shade which is the color with black added. So with our mission in mind to create more depth in our painting we not only want to decrease the intensity of the color but often as in the first example the value decreases as well. So often the color intensity will decrease along with the value. Here's an example that might better help you to understand. This is somewhat of a simultaneous color chroma intensity decreasing and value as well. And in this example it is occurring because white has been added to each stage. The pastels I'm using are primarily the unison 120 half stick set and they are conveniently organized in such a way as the value and color decreases in each section and also some nice neutral divisions as well. For this example I am using one color family kind of a teal color and it is simultaneously decreasing in value and color intensity or chroma. And the reason it is decreasing intensity is because white has been added which is a tint of the original color. So it is actually a quite easy way to get a monochromatic painting with one color family. Now I don't want to complicate matters but color intensity also decreases when we neutralize a color. So for this example I'll be using a similar color family and gradually getting more neutral colors as it recedes into the distance. And here's a graphic that also shows colors neutralizing as they move from left to right. And as you'll see in this next image I have decreased the saturation to show that most of these values are about the same. So even though the color is neutralizing we need to remember we do need to lighten the value as well to create the sense of distance. And that's what I'll be trying to do in this next example. I'm not only decreasing the color intensity by using a tint but I'm also neutralizing it at the same time. So basically in this example the color intensity is decreasing and I made it somewhat neutralizing in the background. And I actually ended up finding some brighter greens. I didn't have any in front of me. Higher chroma greens and added after this. I'll show you a picture of it. So to keep it simple I basically just think about the color losing its punch. Okay it's not going to be as intensified and strong. And this can happen as I showed in the example of it getting lighter in value or a tint white added to it you know and or it can also happen because of neutralizing that color which is some of the color choices that I have made here. And this is all happening because of atmospheric perspective. And that simply means there's more air in between us and objects that are very far in the distance. So it almost acts as a filter and doesn't allow us to see color as intently, intensely or value as dark. I did walk over to my workshop palette of pastels and found some greens that were a little bit more intense to add to this so you can see how the intensity is decreasing as distance increases. Next let's talk about color temperature. Now what do I mean about temperature? I'm speaking of color temperature. We're going to go back to our handy dandy pocket color wheel. And with regards to temperature think of the words fire and ice. All right with respect to warm versus cool colors. And the rule with temperature color temperature is that elements that are closer to you are typically now it does depend on the subject matter typically warmer in color temperature and things get cooler in color temperature as they recede in the distance. Now this is one thing I like to describe because it was like an aha moment for me when I was first learning more about color theory and color temperature. And I was examining the color wheel and I was trying to discover with the the relationship between what's a warm color and what's a cool color. And I realized the color wheel, this is the better way to do it, is basically you could divide it in half. Typically or in general the warmer colors are on this side and the cooler colors are on this side. Now each color can be termed a cool or a warm version of that color. Well let's take green right here for example. Let me get into the camera. For this green okay that's a pretty normal green. If we go this way on the color wheel and get a blue-green, which direction did we go? Did we go to the cool side or did we travel in the direction of the warm side? Well we traveled cooler so this is a cooler green. Now if we traveled in the direction towards the warmer side this is a warmer green. And you can do the same thing pretty much with any color. You just notice which direction did it go. Red is one that's sometimes hard for people to know. Is it a warm red or is it a cool red? Well if you look at red in general if you go this way it's getting warmer reds. If you go this way it's getting cooler reds. So just think of the direction of where things fall on the color wheel. Alright now let's get back to temperature. Temperature is going to get cooler in the distance and it is because of our atmosphere literally our air getting in the way and it changes the color to a cooler color. Like distant mountains have you ever noticed how they look blue or purple in the distance? Whereas if you see things up close if you're at a base of a mountain all the trees look green. Why is it they don't look green in the distance? It's all of that atmosphere in between us and the distance. So that's kind of the physics behind why it happens. I'm a I'm a why kind of person. I know I probably drove my mom crazy as a child. Alright so let's just talk about temperature in general. In this example I am going to be cooling off the greens in the grasses as they go into the distance. I'm just getting some dark values in. Now that you know about values being darker in the foreground and I put a warmer green on top of that tree right there and because it's in the foreground. So as the things increase in the distance those distant trees notice how they are cooler. They're a more of a bluer color. I'm kind of over emphasizing this right now. I made the mountains blue. I also neutralized the color in the distance which gives the illusion of distance. Once again this is all an illusion. Those things really aren't far away. They're right there on your paper. So the next thing I'll be doing is doing the same thing with the grasses. And now since you've already seen the first two steps you'll see how they are actually coming into play as well. We've got a more brilliant green in the foreground. It is warm and it is going to be a darker green. Now let's talk about temperature. I just cooled off that green a little bit as I went a little bit further into the distance. Now I was having a little trouble finding some of the pastels. I did not prepare as well as I should have. That one's probably a little too brilliant in color but it's cooler. That's a cooler greenish blue. Now I'll stay with a little bit of a cool green but a lighter value in the distance. So I've gradually that one blue was probably a little bit too brilliant. But I'm gradually cooling off the distant areas especially mountains tend to do that very obviously. And often I'll use purple sometimes for mountains even though purple is warmer than blue. But you can break out your artistic license every so often. But in general your color temperatures are going there's some purple right there are going to get cooler as they recede into the distance. Now keep in mind these things happen along with other elements in your painting even flowers. I was trying to find a really warm bright red. There's one. That's a that's a little warmer. But your reds if you have some red flowers or pink flowers or whatever in the foreground they're going to cool off a bit in temperature. Now that I showed you the color wheel. Yes there's such a thing as cool reds. See that that's a much cooler red. It's also lighter in value. So now we're referring back to step one. It's not as bold or intense as in color. That's referring to step two. So we've got three things going now. We've got value decreasing. We've got color intensity decreasing and perhaps neutralizing and we have temperature going gradually from warm to cool. Now let's talk about detail and I know this one might be pretty self explanatory kind of like the size one too. We kind of learned this when we're young. But I'm actually surprised at myself when I was first beginning to paint and take it more seriously as I am with beginning artists that I see do the same thing. There's many times that I see an artist who will perhaps be following a photograph and create too much detail in the distance. And the reason photographs do that is because often it has an automatic exposure or setting to where it is capturing detail all over. It's got an aperture setting that's forcing it to do that. So once again just like with the temperature and with the color and with the value we can push these things further than a photograph and create a more artistic and I believe beautiful painting. I'm speeding this one up once again because the detail concept you know I said they were going to be easy. This one and the size one are probably the easiest and so not only do things get less detailed in the background they get a little out of focus you know if you want to think of it that way like when you have if you're familiar with photography the aperture setting you could set it to a certain way where it has that neat effect where things in the foreground are very clear and things in the background are just fuzzy. Well that fuzziness increases as distance increases. So often the most detail you're going to see is in the foreground almost always and like the leaves on the trees you won't see any leaves on those distant trees there but you may see I'm not a big person on painting individual leaves anyway but you'll see a bit more detail in foreground trees. Now I'm moving on to the next one which is size and once again size is one of the easiest of these five steps. So I'm speeding it up I'm actually had to get on the opposite side of the easel and to kind of accentuate it I actually recently did a video on how to accurately render roads according to perspective but keep in mind that size also has to do with perspective you know things like roads and other elements in your painting they're going to follow the basic rule that size decreases as distance increases but perspective is another lesson. Once again check out the video I did on how to correctly render roads in your artwork that one was really a lot of fun. So this last one became kind of like a free-for-all or just kind of throwing all of the elements in at the same time it's a little messy though but I do have some cooler elements in the foreground now why would that happen you see that purple in the foreground and a little bit of teal well that's something that we can use to give an impression of shadows and you know often in deep foreground grasses there are more shadowy areas and in the shadows things are cooler and on the shadow sides of the grass on a road or at the base of a tree wherever the sun's not shining you know it makes sense typically you're going to get a cooler temperature rather than a warmer temperature so that's why sometimes you can see cooler temperatures in the foreground once again keep all this in context with what you are actually painting what your subject matter is you know obviously blue flowers are cool but you can have them in the foreground too here are all of the examples of the five easy steps to create more depth in your artwork once again they're not masterpieces this was just on newsprint paper but it was a lot of fun and I hope you enjoyed it I hope this lesson was beneficial to you in using five ways to create depth in your artwork and if you haven't subscribed already I would love for you to and if you'd like to become a patron I have a little more instruction on the patreon page many people support me on patreon just for the support of this channel to keep free videos coming but I also give extra content instruction we have homework over the weekend this is one of their homework assignments so be blessed and as always happy painting