Walking into a Painting

Many of my landscape or seascape creations involve a perspective of being drawn into the painting from foreground to background. I enjoy creating the feeling in the viewer that he or she is actually walking into the painting.

I use various methods or strategies for accomplishing this feeling of being drawn into the scene. One way is to paint a waterway that meanders into the distance as in my painting, Amber Light (24"x18" acrylic on canvas).

This scene reminiscent of Myakka State Park in Florida, takes the viewer’s eye from the foreground grasses and palm trees on the bank of the creek into the tree-lined distance.

A similar method is used in my painting, Low Sun on the Water (12"x36" oil painting on gallery wrap canvas). In this painting, the water leads the eye into the distance toward the low sun and backlit clouds.

Another technique is to use people and common objects such as boats and landscape features at various distances from the viewer to bring the viewer’s eye from foreground to background as in, St. Martin Playground (24”x36” acrylic on gallery wrap canvas).

In some of my paintings such as, Low Tide (30"x24" acrylic on gallery wrap canvas), the water is the only thing that takes the viewer from the foreground into the distance.

I hope to never run out of interesting ways to have fun by tempting a viewer to "walk into the painting.”

Have a great week,

Alan