In my last post, I wrote about composing my newest still life painting. One thing that might surprise people is that I don’t design my compositions on paper. I don’t start with sketches or compositional theories. Instead, I work out the composition by arranging the actual objects—moving them around on the table, adjusting the light, and adding or removing elements.

To judge whether the set-up works as a composition, I view it through a viewfinder, which is a piece of cardboard with a rectangular hole cut into it in the proportions I like. This frames the image so that it is easier to imagine as a finished two-dimensional picture.

I rarely arrive at the right composition immediately. I try many variations, moving things around and adjusting the lighting. Here’s a better pic of my viewfinder:

When I think I have something that works, I take a photograph with my phone. Looking at the image helps me see the arrangement more clearly as a two-dimensional design. Sometimes the photograph reveals problems—shapes that align awkwardly, lines that lead the eye out of the composition, or spotty light-and-dark patterns. If it does, I’ll go back and adjust the setup and photograph it again until the design begins to feel right.

I study the images over several days, sometimes weeks, making small adjustments to the setup until the arrangement begins to feel right. The photographs help because they allow me to see each version as a two-dimensional design, much as it will appear in the finished painting. Sometimes the differences between the photos are tiny—only a slight turn of an object or a small change in spacing—but they make all the difference.

Below is the finished set-up. I might refer back to this photo when I am well into painting, to see if I’ve captured my initial idea of what the painting should be. I never paint from the photo, though. Photos distort color and don’t show all the complexities of light and reflection. Shapes can also appear distorted by the camera.

This way of composing—working directly with objects and light—is one of the things I’ll be talking about in the first session of my upcoming class, Become a Realist Still Life Painter Without Art School.

The course consists of four live sessions on Zoom. Registration closes March 15, and there are 4 spots remaining. Learn more about the course here.

One habit I see often—and one I had myself early on—is when painting a shadow, to just mix in a dark color. If the object is orange, we add black. If it’s red, we reach for something deeper and mix it in. We assume the shadow is simply the local color we’ve mixed on our palette, lowered in value. It seems reasonable.

But in practice, that approach will not produce convincing shadows. Shadows look shadowy not just because they are dark, but because they have certain color effects. Light behaves differently in shadows than in the mid-tones. Colors are muted. They can be cool or warm, depending on the light source.

Including a light or mid-tone in a dark shadow mixture will dull down the color instead of producing the rich color we want. The saturation drops and the temperature shifts. The shadow may be darker, but it no longer feels transparent. And shadows, in most cases, should feel transparent.

Over time, I stopped adding a dark color to the color I had mixed for the mid or light tones. Instead, I started the shadow color from scratch, mixing a new color using only darker pigments.

Below, on the right side, I darkened the bright orange with my standard ‘black’— a mixture of ultramarine blue and raw sienna. The mix includes the bright orange color, so it looks dull and cool. Then I mixed an entirely new shadow color with alizarin crimson, raw umber, ultramarine blue, and burnt sienna- all dark tones. This is on the left. You can see how much richer and more shadowy-looking this mixture is.

This is one of the ideas I’ll be examining in my free on-line class on February 24, at 5pm PT/8pm ET, looking carefully at how value and saturation work together and how to mix colors that match what you see in reality. If color mixing has ever confused you, this class may clarify why and give you some helpful tips on making your paintings look more real.

The link to register is below. I hope to see you there!

https://lindamann.com/freeclass

It usually begins with an object I’m drawn to. In this case, it was a black bowl that one of my collectors brought to me, thinking that I might like to include it in a painting. I loved the dark sheen and hand-made look it had, though it wasn’t big enough or eye-catching enough to be the subject of a still life. I imagined what might look good with it. Recently, I’ve been painting patterned scarves, so I went to my scarf box, and had a look.

I’ve also been painting costume jewelry. It brings detail and sparkle to the set-up. I had a look through the jewelry drawer and pulled a few things that I thought might be harmonious.

I’ve also been including designer handbags in my last few paintings. I like the scale and drama of them. I found a black one that is very angular and graphic that I thought might look good with the other things I selected.

I really liked the way the bold patterns on this wool scarf looked with the black bowl.

My next step was to bring all of the things I collected and bring them to my studio to put on the set-up table and shine a spotlight on them. Below you can see my fist attempt, which was pretty much putting things down and seeing what looked good next to what. I’ve got the scarf, black bowl, black handbag, a necklace and earrings.

I felt like another object was needed—something with a bit of one of the colors in the scarf, and also some lightness or sparkle. I went to my props shelf, and found a glass paperweight that I’ve painted many times before. I really liked the way it echoed the turquoise in the necklace and some of the stripes in the scarf, as well as bringing some light to the composition.

I decided pretty quickly that the scarf looked strange draped the way I had it. It was bringing the eye too far up and away from the other objects. I didn’t want to lay it on the table folded up, because one of the things I liked about it was the bold, graphic stripes. The effect of them would be lost if I bunched it up, so I tacked it straight across the backdrop. With that change, it suddenly looked like a composition— like a little world I could step into. It wasn’t finished yet, but I could begin to see it. I want my paintings to be intriguing, perfect little worlds. I try to create a sense of both order and drama. I’ll keep moving things around until I achieve that, using light, shadow, and form.

Now I started considering the cast shadows from the bag strap. They could be a great device to lead the viewer’s eye where I want it to go. They have to be intentional. They weren’t doing much in the version above. I moved them to the left to see if I could create some interesting shadows that would lead the eye to the paperweight, which was now seeming like it was the focal point of the composition.

I also began to wonder if it worked to include both the paperweight and the black bowl, since they were almost exactly the same size and shape. I decided that for now, at least, they appear distinct enough from each other because their colors and values are so different. I might decide to paint the bowl smaller or larger. I prefer not to do this, because I like planning everything in the beginning, and it’s easier to compose a set-up seeing everything in reality, in front of me, as it will appear in the painting. I do, of course, make all sorts of changes as I paint, to improve the composition, but the big structural things I like to have firmly established in the beginning.

Below is another version of the strap. I liked the way it drew the eye down to the glass paperweight. Now I am viewing the set-up through a view-finder. It allows me to see how the finished painting will look.

I liked the direction this was heading in. To evaluate it further, I decided to look at it in black-and-white, without the distraction of color. I find that value (or the light and dark pattern) is the most important thing in judging the success of a composition. You can see this below.

I’m generally pleased with it. I like for the darks to be mostly connected into one continuous shape, as well as the lights. In this way, the darks and the lights can interweave with each other, making interesting patterns. Isolated, spotty darks can make a composition confusing and unfocused. As a further test, I looked at it upside down. In this way, you can fool your brain into just seeing the value patterns without being distracted by the individual objects.

Often, in my paintings, I set up a wall on the spotlight side of the set-up so that I can cast a shadow over part of the set-up. This can create dramatic dark shadows. I thought I’d try it here. Below, I’ve cast a shadow over the right side.

This seemed a bit dark, so I tried a smaller shadow, below.

I think I like the drama, but I am missing the colorful bit of the scarf on the right that is now hidden in shadow. I’ll need to live with this for a while and then decide what I like more. Stay tuned!

First, I do a very rough pencil drawing to locate the various shapes. I don’t go into a lot of detail, though. Most of it would be lost after the underpainting and first layers of paint go down, so I save myself the trouble of getting it all recorded now.

After the drawing is transferred to my canvas, I do a monochromatic underpainting in lead white and burnt sienna. I keep the values light and the paint thin. I don’t attempt any details yet. This layer is meant merely as a guide for future painting.

After the underpainting is dry, I paint the first layer of color. I ignore the subtleties of reflections and just try to get a first guess in as to local colors and general shapes. It doesn’t have to look good at this point.

In the next session, I adjust some colors and the drawing. I reduce some of the contrasts in values, since all of the light bouncing around means that nothing is really dark.

Below, at the next session, I adjusted the shapes again. I had to refer to my photo sometimes, because many of these shapes were completely obscured by reflections at my distance from the set-up of 6 feet. After I made the corrections, I put away the photo and observed my set-up. It’s amazing how much difference there is between reality and a photo. Things that seemed sharp in the photo were actually very blurred and indistinct in reality. I had to make sure to reproduce this indistinctness in the painting and not be too clear, otherwise my painting wouldn’t look convincing. This is one reason that paintings done from a photo will never look as real as ones painted from life. It seems counter-intuitive, but it’s true! Below you can see the shapes becoming less distinct.

Next, I continue to correct colors and I add warm haloes around the reflective crystals. This mimics the light bouncing off of the forms. You can see this effect on the gold spoke on the left side of the brooch, below. The highlight is the lightest value, with the edges fading to yellow, then to a dark gold.

Finally, I continue to blur edges and add the brightest reflections in lead white with just a touch of yellow to represent light coming from a warm light source. I also make sure that there are not too many darks near the reflective elements. (In the photo below, the darks appear darker than they are in the painting.) Even though areas might seem dark when you focus on them, if you take in the whole scene, you will notice that in the area of the reflective objects (here, the brooch), everything is bathed in light. So, keep the darks brighter and warmer than you might think. Finally, resist the temptation to show detail that is impossible to see from your vantage point.

It’s impossible to make white paint look as bright as actual light. The range of values in nature, from brightest light to darkest dark, is huge, but actual pigments can’t compete. The best we can do with paint is to use some tricks to make the lights look lighter. The easiest of these is to save the brightest whites for the highlights and key everything else darker. I did this in painting the paper lampshade above. The area below the black band, where the lightbulb is behind the paper, is the brightest spot. I used my pure white here and painted the other areas of the lamp in a noticeably deeper value. The contrast makes the light area look lighter. It was frustrating to paint this way, because looking at my set-up, all of the lamp appeared to glow brightly. I had to paint it much darker than it looked. In the context of the whole painting, however, the lamp looks bright and glowing.

Another great way to make an area look very light is to surround it with a very dark area. You can see this effect above. The white parts of the vase on the right seem to glow when seen in contrast against the dark background.

Another way to evoke a bright light, especially a highlight, is to make it extend past the borders of the object, with no sharp edge. In this way, the light seems to glow outward. You can see this effect in this ring, above, where all the highlights continue past the borders of the ring. Another example is the highlight on the glass paperweight below. The edge of the paperweight on the far-left side is softened, so that the light seems to extend outward, and hence, appears lighter.

A bright highlight will also obscure the details of the form beneath. Scumbling a light tone over details around the highlight mimics this effect, making the highlight look convincingly bright. You can see this on the patterns on the vase below.

In some paintings, it’s important to emphasize the highlights, so as to give a convincing effect of a bright light source. For the shiny yellow vase, above, the only way to do this, as always, was to save the white for the highlight and darken the body of the vase. As with the paper lamp, in reality the vase appeared much lighter, but I had to sacrifice that. It seems contradictory, but I had to darken it in order for it to appear brightly lit!

Sometimes, I’ll key an entire painting darker so that the few lighter areas have more impact. In the painting above, the bright, lit side of the basket, the white stone, and a few highlights on the jewelry and bottle are the only real bright lights. They look bright because of the mid and dark tones around them.

The bowl above is another good example of using lights sparingly to make them appear brighter. Because the mid and dark tones dominate the area, the highlights can shine by contrast.

In the bracelet below, I wanted the crystals to sparkle. In real life, they were blindingly bright. I kept adding pure white, and yet, they didn’t look bright. This was so frustrating! I realized in the end that the only way to make them look bright would be to darken their surroundings. I resisted doing this for a long time, though, because, to my eye, the whole area was bright. This was a time where I had to ignore what I was seeing and paint what I needed to, to get the effect I wanted.

I darkened the adjacent shadow to the right, and parts of the bracelet. This really helped the lightest areas to stand out. Still, it wasn’t as bright as life, but it never is!

This necklace is sitting on a light-valued table. Even though I painted the highlights pure white, they were still not as bright as I wished. As I didn’t want to darken their surroundings, I decided to live with it, as it wasn’t the most important part of the composition. As always, the composition as a whole is what counts.

My still life set-ups are lit mostly with warm, electric light. This creates bright, warm lights and dramatic, cool shadows. However, since my window coverings don’t provide a perfect blackout, I always get some cool daylight sneaking in, adding cool lights and subtle, warm shadows to the set-ups. I’ve come to love the contrast that this secondary light source provides. I’ve taken to deliberately opening my shades a bit. Above, you can see this effect in the shadows cast by the handbag strap on the wall. On the far left is the blue shadow cast by the spotlight. On the right is the warm shadow cast by the daylight coming in from the window on the left. To make it more interesting, this shadow is cast onto a cool shadow on the backwall.

Here is a similar effect. Where the scarf drapes down from the pushpin at the top, it casts two shadows- a cool one on the left from the warm spotlight and a warm one on the right from the cool window.

The effects of the warm and cool light can be seen not just in the cast shadows, but also in the color and temperature of the light on all of the surfaces. You can see the bluer light on the tabletop as it gets closer to the window on the left. The areas of the scarf that face the window reflect this blue light, and those that face towards the spotlight are a warm yellow.

The black vase shows this effect very clearly. There are two highlights, a blue one on the left, reflecting the sky, and a yellow one on the right from the spotlight. The metal in the chains also reflects a cool or warm light depending on the direction it faces.

In the painting above, the white section of the vase facing the window is blue, whereas the white section facing the spotlight is a pale yellowish tone. The interior of the vase follows the same rule, but the warm side is on the left. The highlights are also cool or warm depending on the direction they face.

It’s important to have one of the light sources be the primary one. I’ve found that if the warm and cool lights are equal, the composition suffers. I prefer that the warm, electric light dominates. Also, it can be confusing if both light sources are coming from the same direction. I arrange it so that they come from opposite directions.

For cool areas, I use phthalo blue or cobalt blue in my mixtures. I find that ultramarine blue doesn’t capture the daylight quality as well. For highlights from the spotlight, I never use pure white, as it’s too cool. I always add a touch of cadmium yellow to warm it up. For the daylight highlight, though, pure white works fine. You can see both of these in the black vase rim, above.

In the painting above, the window is on the right. When I looked at the green book, I sensed a bright blue at the window-facing edge of the book because of the cool daylight coming in. As often happens with these light effects, it disappeared when I looked right at it. I painted it in anyway! I find that these ephemeral color effects really add to the sense of reality when trying to capture light. Conversely, there is a yellowy light on the left side of the book that is facing the spotlight.

Above, the cool light is coming from the left. The shadow side of the yellow vase is reflecting this blue light. Also, the scarf is a kaleidoscope of contrasting cools and warms. In these kinds of set-ups, where I allow daylight to mix with warm artificial light, I notice an almost sparkling effect—a vibration and liveliness. It can be a challenge to pin down and paint, but I think it makes for a very exciting and vibrant image.

Here’s the set-up for my latest painting. This week, I was working on the bracelet in the lower right corner. Its structure is complicated and it contains many tiny crystals that reflect the light in a dazzling way. This made it very difficult to make out the details from my easel. I can’t show you exactly what I was seeing, because the camera on an iPhone phone sees differently from my eye and is designed to clarify the image. To approximate, here is a slightly blurry image that better shows how it looked.

Generally, I like to paint things as they appear to me from the distance of my easel (about 6 feet away). This enhances the feeling of reality that I like my still lifes to have. The problem is, as you can see, is that in this case, I can’t see it all clearly. Bright light and reflections blast out detail and obscure what’s around it. I could fudge it and guess at the position of highlights and shapes, but this never looks convincing. I’ve discovered that the best solution for painting complex objects with tiny bits is to take a photo from up close so that I can study the shapes. I’ll take this photo back to my easel and compare it with what I can see. I then use it to guide my drawing. There is a danger here, though. I never paint from photos because they distort colors, values, and even shapes. Colors and values aren’t a problem in the drawing stage, but I do have to keep checking my set-up to ensure that the shapes I’m seeing in the photo look correct. Here is the photo I took to study the shapes:

Of course, even a photo can’t capture everything clearly. Those crystals and reflections are just too complex. This isn’t a problem, though. The point of my paintings isn’t to re-create every detail that is in the set-up. This would be not only impossible but also undesirable, as my job as an artist is to interpret what I see and to only include that which makes the finished image work within the composition. As I mentioned before, for me, that means giving the viewer a sense of what things really look like from where I am painting.

Below is my first very rough drawing. I’ll perfect it before I start painting.

After I transfer the drawing to my canvas, I put on the first layer of paint in my underpainting. I try to preserve the drawing and indicate the basic values (lights and darks) before I start putting on color.

Now that everything is in the right place, I can paint directly from looking at my set-up and interpret what I see there. Now that my brain is armed with the information I got from studying the bracelet up close and looking at the photo, I can actually see more than I did at first. The obscuring lights are still there, but I now know what I’m looking at under all the confusing reflections and twisting shapes, so it’s easier to see.

Above is my first try at painting the links. I am not painting from my photo. The reflections, values and colors are all very different in the photo and in real life. The photo has served its purpose in helping me understand the forms, but now it’s time to study reality. I don’t worry at this stage if it’s perfect. There are many layers of paint to come. The more I put down and the closer it comes to looking right, the easier it is to see and make small corrections.

Above, the links are more resolved, and I made a first attempt at the crystals. I realize that I still need to blur out many details around the crystals to achieve that sense of dazzling light. Below is a reminder of what the scene looks like from back at my easel- blurry, but brighter!

I’ll continue to work on this. Stay tuned!

I’ve been thinking about how strange it feels when an Instagram reel suddenly takes off — one day it’s quietly ticking along, and the next, it’s being seen by hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of people.

My latest reel — the one about mixing paint colors — just passed a million views. It’s always a surprise when something like that catches fire, especially with a subject as specific as color mixing. But I think people respond to that moment of transformation — watching several colors come together and become something unexpected.

It’s not my first viral reel, but it still amazes me. The one where I explained why round forms don’t have sharp edges reached eight million views, and another is close to five. For a still-life painter, that kind of reach is wild. But what strikes me is that both kinds of videos — one about color, one about perception — resonated for the same reason: they make people see differently.

You can watch the new reel here if you’d like to see it for yourself. Seeing that transformation on the palette reminds me why I share my process in the first place — not just to show how I paint, but to share how painters actually see things.

The painting always starts with a detailed drawing. I only work from life, so getting the perspective and shapes right takes some time. The whole painting rests on this drawing, so I can’t rush it. I use several tools to make drawing easier. If you’re interested, here is a link to my old Wordpress blog, where I explain them in some detail.

I prefer to draw with pencil on nice drawing paper. I can draw and erase as much as I need to, something that is difficult to do if you try to draw directly on the canvas.

The tricky part of this drawing was getting the details of the jewelry right. It can be hard to see the small bits clearly from 6 feet back at my easel, so I will often take a picture up close so I can study the shapes. I never paint from this because it looks strange to depict so much detail that can’t actually be seen from my easel. The jewelry reflects so much light that detail is lost in the glow. For it to look real, it has to have that hazy look. However, if the painting isn’t based on the actual structures, it won’t look right. So, I go from too much detail, to much less as I progress, muting details. Here’s my first shot at one of the chains, below:

After I perfected the drawing, I transferred it onto my canvas. If you’re interested in how I do this, see my old Wordpress blog. Now, I can really begin painting.

I start with a monochromatic underpainting in 9 values of lead white and burnt sienna, from almost white to a medium-dark orange tone. This first layer of paint serves many purposes. Most importantly, it’s a stress-free way to begin painting. I don’t have to think about color, details or subtleties of light at this point. It’s also a way to establish the relative values. Finally, it helps me preserve my drawing. I keep edges sharp and the paint layer very thin so I can paint over it in a few days. I also keep it much lighter in value than the finished painting because colors will appear more vibrant if they are not painted over a dark layer. If there are to be particularly bright colors, I underpaint those areas not in my burnt sienna mix, but in a color that will complement the finished color. In this case, to keep the yellows on the scarf and bag bright, I underpainted them with pure cadmium yellow. When I paint over these areas later, the brightness will be toned down but still be bright.

Below is the finished underpainting. You can see that I haven’t included any subtle details that would just be painted over anyway.

This will be a much more colorful painting than I have ever done before. My palette is full of unfamiliar color mixes—it’s exciting!

After my underpainting is dry to the touch, I begin painting with real color. This first layer is very simple. I try to put down the local colors of each area— that is, the basic color, without much shading or details of light variations.

It’s almost impossible to get the right colors and values right away. Until the canvas is covered with paint, you can’t compare areas. Comparing is the best way to get things right. So, I make my best guesses. One good trick is to make a window with the thumb and forefinger of each hand to look through. You frame the bit of the set-up you are trying to judge with the window you made in one hand and frame the bit of the canvas with the other finger-window. You can compare them to see if they match. This always works, because the color is isolated from its surroundings. Here’s a picture of the set-up, so you can compare. You’ll notice that I changed the dark brown square to lavender.

I noticed that it was hard to get the colors and values on the color blocks on the scarf correct. I think one reason is that I’m lighting my set-up with a combination of natural and artificial light (natural on the left and spotlight on the right). This results in a complex mixture of colors and values. I spent so many hours painting one color, then another over it. What looked right through my finger-windows didn’t look right when I stood back from the canvas. Another complication was that every time a cloud passed over the sun, the light would change! The colors on the bag weren’t so hard because they are mostly lit by the warm spotlight.

After I get these colors resolved, I’ll start working on softening edges and painting the subtle effects of shadows and highlights.

I also added a chunky Lanvin bracelet and a David Yurman necklace for some contrast and detail. I often begin this way, putting some things together and seeing how they interact.

I didn’t like the board and thought it might be interesting to use the scarf as a backdrop. I tacked it to the wall for lack of a better way to secure it. It looked a little wonky, but I kind of liked the way it draped unevenly from the tacks. I needed some more things to round out the composition, so I tried a black vase and a black bowl. I liked the way they echoed the black outlines on the handbag and didn’t detract from the many colors. I put up a box on the right side to cast a shadow from my spotlight, for some drama. I also let in some daylight from the window on the left for some contrasting cool light. I experimented with draping the handbag strap over the front of the table to cast its shadow. You can see this first attempt below.

I decided that the strap was distracting, so I draped it behind the bag. I also turned the bag, keeping half of it in shadow. I rearranged the necklace to lead the eye up to the bag and put the bracelet on the right side for balance.

I liked this, but wondered how it would look with a black wall behind instead of the white. I mocked this up with the photo editor on my phone (quick and dirty, but effective).

This looked too heavy and was working against the light and beautiful colors of the scarf. It’s always good to try, though!

I showed the set-up to my daughter, who suggested that though it was nice, it could use a bit of a neon color. As a joke, I added this this little charm I got at Comicom this year and sent a pic to my daughter for a laugh. We both loved it. Who would have guessed?

I tried it in a different position, below, hanging from the bag as a charm. I really loved the way the bright spot of yellow intensified all of the other colors and brought the focus down to the bag and jewelry. Plus, he’s cute. Is that allowed in a serious painting? Yes, I think so!

I liked the set-up but was dissatisfied with the way the dark brown color block in the scarf on the top left drew the eye up and out of the composition. Again using the photo editor on my phone, I changed it to a lighter-valued purple (see photo below). The lighter value didn’t draw the eye so much because the contrast was lessened between it and the light areas surrounding it. Also, the purple seemed more exciting than the brown.

I wondered if I added a new color-block to the upper middle area of the scarf, if it would de-emphasize the vertical feeling of the other two top blocks. As an experiment, I edited in a mustard-yellow block. I liked this very much. The color echoed the yellow on the bag and the greenish- yellow block on the left, and evened out the composition. As a final touch, I draped the bracelet over the edge of the table to cast a little shadow and break up the long horizontal edge.

Even though I’m a realist painter and take great satisfaction in representing what I’ve arranged in front of me, it’s very important to me that in my paintings, I’m creating what I think of as perfect little worlds. For that reason, I have to design them to communicate that idea. Often, I think of changes that will improve the picture that aren’t in the set-up. Ultimately, I’m not just recording what’s in front of me, but considering what will create the most compelling image.

It will be a challenge for me to paint the modified color-blocks because I’m used to carefully selecting the items I want to paint, so that the colors are just right when I paint. Now, I’ll have to invent some colors that are different from what will be in front of me. I’m up for the challenge.

I was recently asked by a follower on Instagram how I got a feeling of depth in my still lifes. I realized that there wasn’t a quick answer, so I thought I’d talk about it here (as I’m still waiting for my canvas to arrive and can’t paint yet!).

I think that the first thing that gives a still life depth is the proper use of perspective. It’s essential to master the basics, or your work will never look convincingly real. Even if you’re the best observer in the world, I find that you need to check your observations with measurements–to locate your vanishing point and make sure that all lines perpendicular to the picture plane recede to it. If objects are at an angle to the picture plane, you have to learn about 2-point perspective and find or estimate those vanishing points. Ellipses have to be drawn at the correct angle and be symmetrical. Below is the drawing for ‘Books in Box with Ribbon and Glass.’ You can see that all lines parallel to the picture plane recede to a vanishing point above the top of the drawing.

Once you begin the painting process, I have found that the way you treat the shadows vs. the light areas also affects the appearance of depth. I like to keep the paint in the shadow areas very thin and transparent. I use several layers of a dark glaze to achieve this. In the lightest areas of the painting, I use heavier layers of paint. The brushstrokes in these light areas stand out from the canvas and actually catch the light illuminating the canvas. This contributes to the illusion of light bouncing off of the objects, which contrasts with the deep, mysterious thin shadows.

It’s also important to remember that in the shadows, details are difficult to discern. Muting these details in the shadows by leaving out some parts, softening edges, and decreasing value differences also increases the illusion of depth. Below, you can see how I muted the details on the spine of the blue book that is in the shadow.

The way you set up a still life can also create a feeling of depth. Overlapping one object with another is one way to do this. This gives the viewer the idea that there is space for the objects to exist in. Remember not to completely block the view of the base of an object that is being overlapped. Even just a glimpse of the base of the object in the back clarifies its form and lends a feeling of stability. In the painting below, you can see some part of the base of all of the bricks. This helps you understand their form and gives them visual weight. The objects in front of the bricks overlap the bricks and each other, giving you a sense of foreground and background, and hence, depth.

Unlike in a landscape, there is very little actual distance between foreground and background in a still life. Using these methods will help accentuate the difference and create the feeling of space.

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