How to paint a Trompe l'Oeil

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Introduction
Drawing
Oil painting
Tempera
Watercolour
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Examples

Step by step example:
How to paint a window like a Trompe l'Oeil

I report here the step by step sequence to realize the Trompe l'Oeil named
"The window with the black and white cat".

The Trompe l'oeil was realized on a Plywood panel about one centimetre thick.

Dimensions: 70cm x 100cm

How to prepare the surface: Vynil glue watered down and spread onto the surface of the panel, and the borders and the back too. On this coat I spread two or three coats of white water paint, then once it had dried I smoothed it with a sand paper.

Colours: Acrylics.

Of course you can click on the pictures to enlarge them

	Preliminary sketch A trompe l'oeil starts first of all with a scale drawing on a sheet of paper usually prepared according to the desires of the costumer.
	Watercolours After the drawing, it's better painting it with watercolours in order to study the combinations of colours and to imagine easily the final picture. Quite often the final painting is not exactly the same of the sketch with the watercolours: the sketch is used to study the subject, of course while painting you can make those changes that look better.
	Squares In order to bring the scale drawing from the paper to the panel, it's better use the squares technique: decide arbitrarily how to make the squares on the sheet of the preliminary sketch, then make the same squares onto another sheet of paper of the exact dimensions of the panel which you are going to paint. The choice of the unit of measurement of the squares must be done so that the square be held in the two dimensions an exact number of times. For example in this case, the panel's dimensions are 70cm x 100cm, so the square should be 10 cm large on the big sheet, so there will be exactly 10 squares along hight and 7 squares along width. So, any dimension have the sheet of the preliminary sketch, it will be enough to divide the hight in 10 equal parts and the width in 7 parts. The aim of the sqaures is to help us bringing wider the drawing from the small sheet into the big sheet of the right dimensions of the panel we are going to paint.
Once we are over with the drawing on the big sheet, we must bring the drawing on the panel we have already painted with white water paint. In order to do so, you can trace the drawing on the back of the sheet, leaning on the glass of a window, thus obtaining the mirror drawing. Then put the sheet onto the panel with the original drawing on top and the mirror drawing against the surface of the panel, and follow the lines of the drawing. This way the drawing of the big sheet will remain on the panel except the sqares.
	Background painting Once we have the drawing on the panel, we can proceed painting. We'd better starting from the farthest horizon and come nearer to the observer in the foreground. So first of all, we must paint the two areas of the sky and the lawn. The colour should be faded on the horizon line so that the sky be brighter near the horizon and become darker coming up, and the lawn be bright green almost azure when far near the horizon and become darker and warmer coming nearer to the observer on bottom of the panel. Once the colour of the sky is well and uniformely shaded, we can proceed painting clouds and sun.
	The garden Paint the flowers and the trees so that coming from far to near the dimensions of the objects grow gradually.
	Roses and trees Paint a red rose bush almost in foreground, just outside the window. Even the colours of the flowers can help giving the sense of depth: far flowers have cold colours, the roses which are closer have warm colour. Paint also the trees which stick out of the two sides of the window. Now you should border the central picture with white in order to paint the structure of the window.
	The window Once the garden is over, then paint the window and the shadings that help suggesting the sense of depth. Start painting also the shadow under the cat, that will be seated on the terrace of the window.
	The cat The last to be painted is the cat, because it's seated in the foreground.