If you can convince a viewer that there is depth in a flat image, you can increase the emotional resonance and believability of your artwork. In this course, professional illustrator Mary Jane Begin explores how color and contrast affect the illusion of space. Mary Jane shows how to choose a focal point for your image, use temperature to define your foreground and background objects, employ contrasting colors to create depth, and work with edges to create contrast. As with all Artist at Work courses, the techniques shown here can be applied to both traditional and digital media.

Mary Jane uses the following materials in this course:

• Arches 140 lb hot press paper
• Tube watercolors - Winsor & Newton Cotman brand
• Paper stumps for blending
• Pastels - a variety of stick and pencil forms (including Conte pastel pencils)
• Short, fat, fine-bristle Winsor & Newton #2 and #4 brushes (for scrubbing color off)
• Sceptre Gold II sable/synthetic blend #3, # 6, and # 10 brushes
• Winsor & Newton Cotman brand 25 mm/1 in. flat brush (for washes)