You should consider color saturation when creating depth in a landscape painting. In general, the closer the object is to the foreground, the more colors or saturated it should be. Items farther away should be duller in color.

The term saturation is a measure of the amount of color being reflected from or not absorbed by an object. For example, if an object absorbs every color except blue, then that blue is considered highly saturated. The object will appear a darker or more vivid blue. When an object absorbs all of the colors including some of the blue it is considered to be partly or low saturation and will appear a dull blue.

Saturation is a natural phenomenon that can be observed by looking real landscapes. Trees along a distant horizon will appear dull compared to those that are closer. This is because light is being absorbed by particles in the air between you and the distant trees.

Just to explain this a little further and to give you a quick science lesson consider the white light beam. A beam of white light contains every color. Therefore, in terms of light, every color combined equals white. When an object appears to be white, it is because the object is reflecting every single color towards us. When an object appears to be the color blue is actually absorbing every color except for the blue, which it reflects. At the other extreme is an object that is black. This is absorbing all of the colors in the white light and reflecting none.

When we view a daytime sky as blue it is because blues are being saturated or reflected back towards us. The length of the light wave also is important but getting a little technical for the purpose of this article.

Saturation is concerned with the intensity, or the brightness and dullness of color. A saturated color is bright. An unsaturated color is dull or low in intensity. To apply the concept of saturation to a landscape painting the artist should make sure that the items in the foreground of a painting are the brightest. Because light is being absorbed into particles in the air between the viewer and the background items the background items appear duller.

Understanding and applying the color saturation principals to your landscape paintings will add realism and depth to them.