Choosing a Viewpoint

One way to add drama or dynamism to a landscape painting is to view the scene from an interesting angle that highlights the focal point. Where you place the horizon line (the line at which the sky meets the land) determines which area of the painting will attract the most attention; a low horizon brings focus to the sky, but a high horizon draws the eye to the foreground. And the viewpoint doesn’t need to be an extreme “bird’s eye” or “worm’s eye” view to be effective; even a slightly high or low viewpoint can focus on shapes and features you wouldn’t notice at eye level. The slightly elevated viewpoint in this high-horizon painting brings the viewer’s eye from the foamy foreground to the buildings, where crisp edges and ...

Get Acrylic Painting Step by Step now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.