How do I make a landscape look like it goes back miles?

Depth in a landscape comes from atmosphere rather than from perspective lines. Distance reduces contrast, softens edges, cools colour and removes detail — apply all four consistently and the space appears.

Difficulty: intermediate
Time: 35 min
Read: 4 min

Short answer

Divide the scene into three or four distinct planes — foreground, middle distance, far distance, sky. Give the foreground the darkest darks, the sharpest edges and the most texture, and progressively reduce all three as things recede. Nothing in the far distance should be as dark or as detailed as anything in the foreground.

A landscape has no convenient converging edges to build perspective from, which is why landscapes drawn with careful linear perspective often still look like a flat backdrop. What actually creates the sense of miles is the air itself: many kilometres of atmosphere scatter light, and the effect on tone and colour is dramatic and completely predictable.

Step by step

Separate the scene into three or four planes before drawing anything.Squint hard until the scene collapses into flat shapes. You will see them group naturally — the near bank, the field, the ridge, the far hills. Assign each a value and stick to it.
Reduce contrast with distance.Within the foreground you might use the full range from black to paper white. In the middle distance the range narrows. The furthest hills might occupy only two adjacent values near the light end. This compression is the single strongest depth cue you have.
Soften the edges as things recede.Foreground edges are crisp — a blade of grass, a fence post. Distant ridges have soft, slightly indistinct edges. A hard-edged far hill will jump forward no matter how pale you make it.
Remove detail and texture with distance.Individual leaves in the foreground; a texture suggestion in the middle; a plain shape in the distance. Trying to render every tree on a far hillside is the fastest way to flatten a landscape.
Cool and lighten the distance in colour.Distant hills go blue-grey, because the atmosphere scatters short wavelengths. Add a little blue and a lot of the sky colour to any distant passage, and reduce its saturation. Warm, saturated colour reads as near.
Overlap the planes clearly.Make sure each plane is clearly in front of the next — a hedge passing in front of a field, a ridge overlapping the hill behind it. Overlap plus tonal separation is what makes the space unambiguous.
Vary the scale of repeated things.Trees, fence posts, sheep, walls. A row of identical trees that shrink convincingly does more for the space than a ruled perspective grid ever will.
Give the sky the same treatment.Skies are lighter and warmer at the horizon and darker and more saturated overhead, and clouds shrink and flatten as they approach the horizon. A sky of even tone throughout kills the depth of everything under it.

Tips

Trees read as masses of foliage clumps with sky holes through them, lit on top and dark underneath. A lollipop shape comes from drawing an outline and filling it; draw the clumps instead and leave gaps.
Water reflects what is above it, darker and slightly less contrasty, and the reflection comes towards you rather than sitting behind the object. Ripples break it into horizontal bands.
Clouds have form and a light direction like anything else — flat bottoms, lit tops, shadowed undersides. Drawn as outlines they look like scribbles.
In British weather the atmospheric effect is unusually strong, and a rainy day genuinely gives you the clearest possible demonstration of it.

Common mistakes

Rendering the distance as carefully as the foreground — Equal attention across the whole depth of a scene destroys the space and leaves a decorative flat pattern, however skilfully each part is drawn.
Using a black outline on distant features — Nothing in the far distance is dark or hard-edged. One black line on a far ridge will pull it forward into the foreground.
Drawing the sky as an afterthought — The sky sets the light for the entire landscape and usually occupies half the picture. Establish it early.

If it doesn't work

The picture looks like a stage backdrop

Cause: All planes at similar contrast and detail — Fix: Lighten and soften everything beyond the middle distance, and darken the nearest foreground element until it is clearly the darkest thing present.

The distant hills come forward

Cause: Hard edges or saturated colour in the distance — Fix: Soften the top edge with a dry brush or a blending stump, and add sky colour into the hill so it shares the atmosphere.

Everything is soft and it looks foggy rather than deep

Cause: No sharp, dark, detailed foreground element for the rest to recede from — Fix: Introduce one strongly stated near element — a post, a branch, a rock — at full contrast.

Questions people ask

Does this work in a small view, like a garden?

The atmospheric effect is negligible over a few metres, but the principle of reducing contrast and detail with distance still helps enormously, and overlap does most of the work.

How does it interact with linear perspective?

They stack. Linear perspective handles the man-made straight edges — walls, roads, buildings — and atmospheric perspective handles everything else. A landscape with buildings needs both.

Why do my landscape photographs look flatter than the scene did?

Same reason your drawings do. A camera compresses the tonal range and often boosts contrast and saturation uniformly, which removes the recession. Working from life, or from an unedited raw file, gives you truer information.