Mountain Retreat

The trick about depth is various value. Everything at the horizon becomes lighter and purple-gray-blue.

With acrylics it is triple challenge as when you do far away mountains you need to premix that color on the pallet as pretty much for everything done in acrylics as they dry too fast and almost no mixing on the canvas happens.

When you move closer to the viewer the darkest darks happen here and lightest lights. This creates maximum contrast and pushes pale mountains back even further.

Another trick for distance - do not use same warm colors as highlights on the far away mountains (refer to the first rule) . Here you can see that foreground is made the same as background, thus no depth. You first painting here does not have this problem and you see more depth there.
Also you mountain is grayer in the first painting.

Overall this painting creates impression of lake and close hills and that is not bad at all.

Thank you for your detailed input. I guess I am not always attentive to this part and end up with hit or miss results. Either way, at least the learning process is fun and an escape for me and remains a challenge with lots of room for improvemet and something to look forwad to. Thanks again

Dont worry about value, just enjoy the process and learning will flow with. :) you have an excellent mindset already, the rest will come!

First, I want to say I really enjoy seeing your paintings. I've always wanted to see Bob Ross landscapes done in acrylic for comparison. Not only have you showed me that, but made me appreciate it more!

Second, I agree with Sunny Lady about the difference in values as showing distance. Perhaps try starting off with 2 mountain ranges in the background (the farthest one being the lightest of course, with minimal to no highlights) and go from there. You then may find you'll enjoy putting multiple planes of the same thing (mountains, tree tops, rolling hills, snow banks, etc...) as you work your way into the foreground. Good luck on your next one and keep em coming!

Thank you Vmehta for your encouragement and tips. I am well aware now how important perspective and values are. It just seems that old habits are hard to overcome since I never took art classes and learned on my own by trial and error. But it is a fun process no matter what and I enjoy learning from my mistakes and seeing how things evolve as I practice new techniques. Right now I am enjoying practicing more on small porcelain tiles.