How to Draw a Scene Using Atmospheric Perspective

In this video, I show you how to take in atmospheric perspective and give the illusion of depth in a drawing by varying the shade and texture of distant mountains.

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Welcome back everyone to another drawing tutorial. Due to the positive feedback on real time drawing tutorials. I am going to try and do more of them. I will still do some in my older fashion but it will be more of a mixed bag from here on.

Anyway, in this drawing I wanted to show you my knowledge on Atmospheric Perspective. This happens in landscapes where you can see over a large distance. As you look further and further to distant hills, mountains, and other objects they tend to decrease in contrast and detail. The further back they are, the more blue/gray they become depending upon the time of day. In mid day, they will turn more blue but in early and late evening, they can range widely in color. All the way from oranges to reds and peaches depending on the overall sky color.

The reason why this happens is because of the water vapor in the air. As light from those distant objects comes towards your eye, the light becomes distorted because of the shape of the water vapor. Because of the distorted light, a lot of light from the sky is mixed into the color of the objects which is why more distant objects become lighter and lighter. The effect is magnified significantly.

So when you apply this to drawing, you can make very believable distance within a simple landscape demonstration like this one I am drawing now. I start with closer mountains showing more texture and details while ones that are further back, I lighten the shade and add less detail and texture to push it back into the background. Increase this effect the further an object is away from the viewer.

Knowing atmospheric perspective is a great tool to help show distance in a drawing and makes them much more believable and understandable to view.

I hope this video has helped you and as always, thank you for watching and please like and subscribe! Stay tuned for next weeks video!