1.
Lead the viewer down a path Having a path or something that the viewer can follow is a great way of adding depth to a painting.
If you're going to give the viewer something that captures their attention and take it somewhere, it should extend into the background.
A path that goes from left to right or right to left isn't going to add much depth to a painting, whereas a path that goes into the background and gets smaller will.
You don't have to use an actual path: you could use a winding river, for example.
Having something to lead the viewer into the background not only gives paintings depth, but it also splits the painting into different parts.
This is particularly true if the path zig-zags a lot because the viewer's eyes are being moved to more parts of the painting.
2.
Emphasis on the foreground If there's an equal amount of detail throughout a painting, it's going to be harder to perceive depth.
One way you can create depth is by placing emphasis on the foreground: this creates two different levels to your painting, the foreground level that's emphasised to the viewer, and the background level which isn't meant to be what the viewer should focus on.
A painting with just one level isn't going to have depth: paintings with more than one level will.
The way to place emphasis on the foreground is by painting the objects in the foreground in much more detail than whatever is in the background.
Use a greater variety of colours and tones, as well as texture, to bring the foreground to life; use fewer colours and less texture in the background.
3.
Overlap things Another way to create different levels to your painting is to overlap things.
This gives your painting a greater sense of distance, as well as depth.
When using this technique, you can create an even greater sense of depth by providing contrasts between the things that are overlapping each other.
For example, if you have two trees overlapping, don't have them the same colour and size, otherwise it isn't going to look that they're that different at all.
By having the two trees different in appearance, this helps keep them separate from each other and create distance between them.
4.
Forced perspective Forced perspective is a technique that's used to trick people into thinking that something is closer or farther away than it actually is.
This technique can be used in paintings by manipulating the natural scale of objects.
For example, if you're doing a painting with a series of trees going from the foreground to the background, you would usually stick to a natural scale when determining the size of each tree.
In other words, you would paint each tree as you see it in real life.
However, with forced perspective, you manipulate this scale: trees in the foreground would be painted as they are in real life, then the further get to the background, the smaller you make each tree in relation to its real size.
The tree that's furthest away would therefore be painted much smaller than it actually is in real life, whereas the tree that's closest to the foreground would be painted as it is in real life.
5.
Portrait or landscape? It's generally thought that a landscape format is more suitable for creating depth, rather than a portrait format.
This is because paintings are wider in landscape format than in portrait format; a greater width allows for a greater horizon line.
We tend to look at landscapes horizontally, so we're used to using the horizon line as a guide to determining how far away things are.
Because paintings in a landscape format have more of a horizon line, there are more things that can be manipulated into giving the painting depth.
You can still create depth in portrait paintings, but the effect is more pronounced in paintings done in a landscape format.