How to create depth in a painting

July 10, 2025

By Richard Robinson

"Milford Sound" 8x16" Oil on Linen by Richard Robinson

"Milford Sound + snow" 8x16" Oil on Linen by Richard Robinson (I fiddled after it dried).

"Milford Sound 2" 14 x 24" Oil on Linen by Richard Robinson

"Milford Sound 3" 13.5 x 28" Oil on Linen by Richard Robinson

Resource photo of Milford Sound in New Zealand.

Painting the 8th Wonder of the World

Milford Sound is unbelievable. It's one of those rare places on Earth that has arranged itself as a perfect painting subject, perfectly side and back lit, that only needs to be put in a frame, with no alterations neccesary. It's also somewhere I've dreamed of painting since I was a child, since we had placemats of this scene that captivated me at each meal time and inspired my first ever landscape painting at the age of 12.

Creating Depth

This scene is all about grandeur and creating the illusion of depth. There are 7 visual tools we can use to achieve depth in a painting.

Scale makes foreground objects larger and background ones smaller to suggest distance.
Atmospheric perspective makes distant objects hazier and cooler in tone, while foreground elements stay sharp and warm.
Overlapping shapes define near and far by placing objects in front of each other.
Texture contrasts rough, thick strokes in the foreground with smoother ones in the background.
Colour uses warm, vibrant hues to advance and cooler, muted tones to recede.
Detail emphasizes sharp, intricate elements up close while softening those farther away.
Linear perspective draws converging lines to a vanishing point, structuring spatial relationships.

We'll look at using all these tools in this painting so that you'll then know how to use them in all your paintings from here on in.

This demo is in oils but it's fine for acrylics too.

I'll take you step by step through this whole process. Just a couple of hours and you'll have a beautiful painting of a Milford Sound.

Just 5 steps

I’ll guide you all the way.

Overcoming Photographic Limitations

In backlit situations cameras tend to under-expose the darks, making them too dark. We can fix that by saving our darkest darks for the foreground, helping create more depth.

Sketching, Stretching and Squeezing

Smart phone cameras tend to shrink distant objects in order to squeeze a scene into the frame. Becoming aware of that is important. We can enlarge those distant peaks to compensate and regain their majesty. I've also squeezed the central area a little in order to make a slightly taller painting. Exaggerating the steepness and height of mountains is a time honoured painterly tradition.

Layer upon layer

Seeing and mixing the subtle value differences between the mountains is key to creating depth here. Note that the colours get a little bluer on the left away from the warming glow of the sun. Light mist is employed at the base of the mountains to add a little more depth and mystery. We use the same colours to paint the blurred vertical reflections.

Light on dark

To create the sunlit mountainsides we mix from the individual mixtures saved on our palette from the mountain base colours. For each mountain the light colour is subtly different, but the goal is to mix slightly lighter, slightly greener colour than the base colour for each mountain. To do that we add white, orange and yellow, using a filbert brush to easily create the impression of trees.

A warmer sky

To help balance all that cool blue grey in the scene we can add a warmer sky, lending it a slightly more romantic quality. While painting the sky we're also shaping the mountains and being careful to make soft edges contrast with sharp edges to help add more depth.

Foreground textures

A little thicker paint with more texture is employed in the foreground to help create the illusion of detail and to add depth by contrasting with the smoother background paint. A few crisp details are then added with a fine brush. And Voila!

"Milford Sound + snow" 8x16" Oil on Linen by Richard Robinson

Tweaking

A few changes for the better - adding snow and a warmer light in the waterfall mist and foreground grasses. Much happier!

I'll take you step by step through this whole rich process and you can choose which parts you'd like to try out in your own work.

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

—Walt Disney

Enjoy!

Student Critiques

Milford Sound 12x24 Oil on Canvas

Artist: Nancy Newton

Hey Nancy, you’ve increased the saturation of the colours throughout the scene and given it your expressive brushwork and that all combines to make a very lively feel. Nice!

There’s a lot of depth there and I can see you’ve made an effort to create a variety of edges in the mountains which adds to the interest. Just two things I’d like to point out and they’re both drawing issues.

First, make sure the base of your mountains on the water is dead straight and horizontal, otherwise, as we can see on the tight, it looks like the water becomes choppy there, and that doesn’t match the highly reflective water surface.

Second, the baselines of the foreground grasses against the water are too straight and symmetrical, which takes away from the naturalness of the scene. Other than that, great work!

Milford Sound Oil on oil paper

Artist: Geoffrey Geeson

Hi Geoffrey, this is a really interesting take on it - much more graphic, with distinct organic shapes and more colour contrast. Beautifully done! I think this would look amazing large on a big plain wall.

Milford Sound - 8" x 16" Oils on Canvas

Artist: Fay Thomson

Really nicely done, Fay. I love the moulding of form you’ve created in the greened slopes by subtly modulating the lights there. The same can be said for the little spotlit areas in the foreground grasses. The reflections are on point too.

Two things I can see you could work on in the next one: Give a little more structure to some part of the sky/clouds so it’s not just a woolly blanket. There’s room for more interest there. The gradation you’ve got there is great though. Secondly, You’ve got a line running down the right side of Mitre Peak - a definite no-no which only serves to flatten form. Easily fixed. Other than those little tweaks, beauty!

Milford Sound - 8 x 16 Oil on Linen

Artist: Louise Villegas

Hi Louise, isn’t it interesting how when you chose a squarer canvas than the original design, that squeezing those mountains into that new shape makes them seem so much taller! Something else that you’ve done that makes mountains appear more grand is making their upper crags smaller, which makes them look like giants seen from an ants-eye-view. Nice!

Just a couple of thing I’d like you to look at - the first is that the greens on the mountains needs to always be lighter, if only slightly, than the base blue/grey they’re painting on top of. That’s especially noticeable on the base of Mitre Peak here. Secondly, being very still water, your grassy clump needs a reflection. Otherwise the water looks like ice.

Milford Sound, by Mark Price 1m x 40cm oil on canvas.

Wow, Mark you hit it out of the park with this one - great to see you working on such a large canvas, which is always much more difficult to resolve, but this epic scene really deserves it.

Lovely composition with that sweeping intro, great depth you’ve created and plenty of interesting details to fill the canvas and hold attention. The reflections are great too.

One thing you could consider to give this painting even more power is to strengthen the spotlight effects you’ve created in various key spots. At the moment the overall lighting effect is subdued and austere, which is fine, but you could add some more visual WOW by intensifying some spotlit areas. Food for thought. Congratulations on a great painting!

Congratulations and thanks to everyone who entered a painting into the monthly workshop. Great work!

Get the full 95 minute lesson here: https://mypaintingclub.com/lessons/261-Milford-Sound

- Richard.

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