Landscape Post No. 3

There are two more art concepts that are important with landscapes: perspective and scale. For instance, perspective means things look bigger close up than they do far away. Like in real life, a man we know to be 6' tall when he's close by, looks only an 1" tall when he's half a mile away.

Perspective also involves the use of scale. Scale is flexible, because it all depends on the particular size and subject of your art piece.

For example, if you are using commercial fabrics in a landscape, the scale of your fabric needs to match where it is appearing in the picture. A flower in the front of the picture would be a bigger scale, or size, that one in the back of the picture, because of perspective. A flower also needs to approximate in your picture size, what its size would be in its surroundings in nature. For example, if you are making a 24" x 36" landscape, you wouldn't use an 8" rose (even in front) because it would be out of scale for your landscape size. However, if your piece is actually about a closeup of a rosebush, the scale of an 8" rose might be fine.

One other rule you should know about perspective is that colors get softer (lighter and less detailed) and grayer as they get farther away. That means your darker, brighter mountains should be in front and lighter, grayed colors should be used for the mountains in the back. This is where dyed gradations come in handy. But this rule applies to everything really. The most detail and brightest color of a tree, for example, would be in the front and the detail and color lessens as you move toward its rear. Study the picture above as an example of how these concepts play out. Note the brightest color and clearest detail in front and the graying colors and reduced detail in the distance.

If you study your favorite fabric landscapes, you will likely discover that one of their charms is that they have appropriate perspective and scale.