How to create 3D effect in painting?

While I was making my painting “The Goodness”, there was a need to create a point of interest in the middle portion of the painting. So, to make the middle portion interesting, I was thinking of a 3D effect. This led me to a question that arises in the mind of many art enthusiasts – “ how to create 3D effect in painting ”.

There are many ways in which an artist can approach to answer – “how to create 3D effect in painting”. I am going to share how I did it in my painting. First step was that I needed to eliminate all the flat forms from the painting. I needed to give it an illusion of things happening in the background and foreground. Whatever I had learned in perspective helped me a lot in creating this effect.

How “perspective” helped me to answer “ how to create 3D effect in painting ”:

• Forms in the background had to be shorter than the one in the foreground.
• Foreground forms had to be bigger in size with more detailing.
• Forms that had to be shown receding to the infinity were to be drawn accordingly. This was achieved by drawing lines that had a meeting point at the horizon and were not parallel to each other.

Just the knowledge of this simple fact that when two lines are parallel, they don’t create an illusion of depth, but when they are meeting at some point in horizon, they seem to be going farther away is so helpful:

How the use of colours helped me in answering “ how to create 3D effect in painting ”:

• Background portion was done with the darkest shade of maroon.
• Forms (sticks in the background) were just a bit lighter shade then the dark background.
• Forms in the foreground had much more detailing then the ones in the background.
• Detailing was achieved by using even lighter and more tonal gradation.
• Lastly, the rings were coloured lightest by using shades of white, orange and tinge of maroon.

As a result of going from darker to lighter shades from the background to the foreground, a feel of depth was created. “How to create 3D effect in painting” was answered through the above ways out of the numerous ways possible. And voila, I had a point of interest in my painting!

The middle portion, which is the focal point and the point of interest, was the major learning experience for me:

P.S. : To know more about the making of my painting – “The Goodness”, click here.