Atmosphere: How Does This Affect My Colours?

Atmosphere: How Does This Affect My Colours?

by Ron Gribble

The answer is everywhere — it depends on distance.

If you’re painting a still life tucked away in the corner of a shed, atmosphere will play a very small role. There’s simply not much distance in the scene. But as soon as you introduce depth — hills, trees, buildings, horizons — atmosphere becomes one of the most important factors in your painting.

By atmosphere, I mean the way light and colour are affected by what’s in the air: moisture, dust, heat, time of day, season, and even where you are on the planet. All of these elements combine to create the unique colour conditions of any given day. That atmospheric influence affects every dark colour in your painting, from the foreground right through to the distance.

Aerial (or Colour) Perspective

As distance increases, colours become lighter, softer, and often warmer. This is because distant objects are more affected by light passing through the atmosphere. This principle is commonly known as aerial perspective — though I prefer to think of it as colour perspective.

If you can learn to identify the main atmospheric colour in your scene and use it consistently, painting becomes much simpler.

Choosing Your Atmospheric Colour

Atmospheric colours usually lean cool, as they sit in shadow, but you still need to decide how cool or warm you want them to be. Start by mixing an atmospheric colour for the mid-ground at the correct value.

• Mix plenty of it. Then divide it into three piles:

• Lighten and slightly warm one for the background

• Leave one as-is for the mid-ground

• Darken and cool the last for the foreground

• This gives you a clear, unified structure for the entire painting.

  
  

One Colour Family

Your atmospheric colour should appear in all areas of the painting — even in the highlights. Sometimes it will be barely noticeable, but it’s there. This shared colour family is what makes a painting feel cohesive and believable.

When everything is connected by atmosphere, the painting naturally “hangs together.”

Happy painting,

Ron Gribble