n order to create an impression of volume and depth one must not overlook what is called colour perspective.

The concept is a little more subjective than line perspective or tone and shade perspective. Nobody likes to follow rules about the use of colours. Where to use them and how to use them is very personal. Nevertheless, it is important to know that some colours tend to stay in the background of a painting or a drawing when others tend to move forward. Once you are trained or if you have a natural sense of perspective, you will be using the right colour with the corresponding subject. To summarize, a warmer colour would be more adapted to an object in the foreground and a colder colour would be more adapted to the background.

The painter’s palette is often divided into “warm” and “cold” tints. It is actually not that simple. For example, purple is hard to define as warm or cold. It is admitted though, that yellow or orange would be placed among the warm colours when blue or green would be placed among the cold ones. It makes sense to associate the yellow, red and orange with fire or sun and to associate blue and green with ice or with the ocean.

When painting, of course, the general rule can be bent to some extent. If you want to represent somebody with a bright sweater in the background of your picture, you might want to reduce that colour with a little white and if you want to represent somebody with a light colour coat in the foreground of your picture, you have to strengthen it with a darker tone. Nevertheless, the general rule is to use brighter colours in the foreground and lighter colours in the background.

Here is an exercise you can try. First imagine this scenery with an old castle, trees, a river and a few people walking around.

Divide the scenery in three views: the foreground, the middle ground and the background.

In order to be able to see the three views as you superpose them, you need to cut a good size opening on the middle view and a bigger opening on the front view.

On the background, you can draw or paint the old castle with people standing by and the sky and clouds above. On the middle view, you can draw the river with trees along the banks and maybe a boat on the water. On the foreground, you can place a group of trees on both sides of the scenery.

For the background, you have to limit yourself drastically with the use of colours. The castle, the trees and the sky have to be relatively dull. That means the colours you are using have to be restricted to grey, blue, green and cold or dull tints in general. In any case, when you have to represent something bright in the background, you have to dilute your bright or warm colours with a whitish blue or green. We could say that the colours for a background are close to pastel colours.

For the middle view, you can allow yourself to use a little more yellow or brown or dark green. That would be perfect for the river and the trees.

As for the foreground, if you want to represent trees and flowers, feel free to use all the bright colours you have in mind. You can also paint somebody with colourful clothes. The scarlet red, the orange or brown are welcome.

Now, as you superpose all three images, you will be amazed by the impression of distance between the three different views. As mentioned previously, colours also, are ruled by the laws of perspective; a different kind of laws, but important whatsoever.

Of course, once you are totally aware of this principle, you still remain the creating artist. If your inspiration tells you, for any personal reason, to divert from the rule, you are the master.