How You can Paint Foregrounds with Confidence

17/5/2018

What to Do and What to Avoid when Painting Foregrounds

A frequent question from workshop members is how to paint foregrounds in a landscape. Often I observe this issue in artist's work too. Most of the artist's attention is on the focal area. But the foreground remains unresolved and the painting suffers for it.

In this article I want to tackle this problem of foregrounds with tips you can use today in your paintings. Plus video.

Why are Foregrounds Difficult to Paint?
The answers to this question will help to explain the dilemma. When working out composition you know that:

The viewer's eye must be directed to the focal area;
The viewer must not be sent to the edges or corners of the picture plane;
You must avoid distractions that weaken the composition.

But if the foreground is lacking in content the painting appears weak or unfinished. Not to mention top heavy. How to solve the dilemma of too much or too little attention to the foreground?

What Foregrounds Should Do
I look at the foreground as an introduction. The welcome message. The promise of a fine experience. If you think of books or movies you will see that the beginning is exciting. It is interesting too and draws you into the main story.

Beginnings are not weak, but they do not dominate either. You want more. In the case of paintings your eye seeks out the focal area via the foreground. Then the eye moves around and back to the foreground to start the journey again.

Important Foreground Pointers
When painting a typical landscape you want to convey a three dimensional plane. The foreground is the beginning of that plane. If it is lacking spatial indicators your eye will move upwards instead of inwards. This is why roads, for example, sometimes look like they are moving vertically up the painting. How to fix this?

Tips for Better Foregrounds:

Use spatial markers like roads, paths and similar devices to take the eye from the foreground. These help convey the effect of distance.
Effects of distance include narrowing width of a road, path or streams for example.
Diminishing size of poles, trees or other markers as they recede.
Overlapping shapes like bushes, trees and natural features.
Adjusting color temperature to get cooler with distance. The road surface color temperature, for example, will be cooler in the middleground.
Conversely foregrounds in sunlight will be warmer in color temperature. This makes the foreground rise towards you. You can see why adjusting color temperature is so important.
Use thicker paint and bigger brushstrokes in the foreground to add texture and spatial cues.
Use the foreground as an entrance. A large shadow falling across the foreground invites you to step over the shadow into the light.
Frame the foreground with cool and dark overhanging tree branches and bushes. This window effect invites you to look into the sunlit middleground.
Use pattern rather than flat, bland surfaces. If you have large areas of yellow green color you can break it up with burnt sienna or cooler, darker green. This creates a pattern or rhythm that is not monotonous. Sometimes it is simply a dark shape or three that make an area interesting. Experiment.

Avoid these Foreground Blunders

Placing your landscape focal area in front. This abrupt in-your-face approach is unsettling.
Avoid blocking the eye from entering the painting. If you place a high fence line across the immediate foreground you may be stopping the viewer too early. A closed gate right in the foreground is a similar hurdle. Rather make easy to look over the object into the receding distance.
Foreground objects have too much detail. Rocks, bushes and so forth must be very basic in shape. Suggest form and volume with shadow and light, but not details.
Distracting things that add nothing to the picture. Why are they there? If no compelling reason then remove them.
Hard edges. Rather use soft edges in the foreground so as not to attract too much attention.
Try not to make up details. This leads to fake looking things. Fan brush trees, weird rocks and peculiar ponds are examples. Usually the dimensions are wrong and the details look trite. Instead use what is actually in the scene for more accuracy.
Failing to move or remove objects. You can move a tree that is directly in front of the scene. Or leave it out. Common sense must prevail.

Color Temperature is Key
Often a mundane stretch of foreground comes to life with a variety of warm and cool shapes. One color temperature must dominate though. If there is a large piece of cool shadow then a few dapples of sunlight give it zing. If it a mostly sunlight then little cool violet shadows may add sparkle.

The idea is that you are not changing the overall value of the shape. You are rather adding interest to the shape. Find out more about using color temperature correctly.

Be Bold and Determined
Many a painting fails because the artist is too nervous about completing it. Remember that if you prepare and start the painting right you have a better success rate. Now finish the foreground with a large brush in bold shapes. Lots of paint. Never get caught up with fiddling brush marks.

Final Words
Study master paintings you admire in the genre and technique you prefer. Ask yourself how they handled the foreground. Use their techniques. Why is that shape there? Why is that color used? Question, consider and try those methods on your painting. This is how to learn.