to paint or not paint a background and before or after subject - WetCanvas: Online Living for Artists (2024)

Lopaka

Not sure if I should paint a background on my bird pictures and if I do when should I paint it before or after painting the subject .
Any help and ideas appreciated.

virgil carter

No rules. But the traditional approach to using watercolor is to paint from light to dark.

Thus if your background is light value, you might paint it first. On the other hand, if your background is dark value, you might paint it last.

Or not. Your choice.

Sling paint,
Virgil

Sling paint,
Virgil Carter
http://www.virgilcarterfineart.com/

Triduana

I generally paint the background first. In most of my paintings my backgrounds aren’t detailed, just colours mingled wet-in-wet that tone with the main subject, painting around where my main shapes are going to be but with a bit of an overlap. This helps to ensure that there aren’t any white areas left around my main subject. If I’m doing a detailed background, I’ll still put washes in first, but add the detail in later.

LatteForZoey

What Virgil said, light to dark. Although sometimes I find myself going back and forth between the two. I almost always start with the background because it helps to define my subject (the people, animals, whatnot). However, if there are darker values in the background, I may work background–> subject –> background (darker values) –> subject (darker values).

[FONT="Book Antiqua"]-Zoey

hblenkle

Either way is OK as seen by the previous posts. I would recommend you try both ways to see which you prefer and can see why.

MarialenaS

All backgrounds, light or dark is better to be painted in advance. Otherwise the subject will look like pasted on the background. The way to do it is by masking the edges / outlines of the subject, work the background wet in wet, let it dry completely, remove the masking fluid and proceed with the making of the subject. While you are painting whatever your subject is, your brush will soften the edges where the background is attached with the subject that you are painting. It is something similar with the glazing technique but in an auto mode!

Johndk

:thumbsup: Agree with Virgil. Your choice.

To consider:

Sometimes putting in background first (Marialena’s recommendation) does dial down the white paper and this assists with assessing values. The white surround tends to distort reading of value, and then you add it at the end only to find that you main subject values are incorrect.

If you paint plein air and find at the end you limited water supply is dirty – its best to leave the sky or background out and do it in the studio later. The dirty water will distort the achievement of clean washes.

Like all things watercolour – it needs a little strategic planning ahead of putting pigment to paper.

Have fun.

As long as there is light, I will paint it.

CharM Moderator Watercolour Forum

Whether or not to do a background is a personal choice. I like to do both. Sometimes the subject itself works best with lots of white space surrounding it, and then other subjects need the background to help tell the story. When preparing for my solo exhibition, I had to create a body of work in a short time span. In desperation, I left many of my still life subjects without a background and found that I really liked the way they presented. But not all subjects work as well and need the support of a background to finish them.

Landscapes are naturally painted with foreground, middle and backgrounds.

I think you need to use your own discretion when deciding whether or not to include a background.

And as a side note, because I seem to consistently swim upstream making the journey a difficult one, I paint my backgrounds last. I do soften the edges of my subject matter so it doesn’t look pasted on. But this is the process that works best for me.

Lopaka

Thank you one and all for the great advice, I just did a background as last item and am not too happy with a screw up I made:envy:

Oh well in the next one I will do background first:wink2:

Thanks again for the help;p.

Lopaka

FrankM

Sometimes I do a painting’s background first, and then I also do it again as a final touch. (This may happen when the initial background value needs to change because of how I later created the subject — mostly from a lack of experience and/or planning.)

FrankM

pjartwc

Hi Lopaka, Don’t be too hard on yourself. Backgrounds and foregrounds are the hardest. What you might do with your “messed up” painting is to experiment. Are there parts you like? If the subject is light in value, try adding another dark glaze to the background – BOLDLY. If the background is already too dark. Remove paint by lightly scrubbing – a Mr Clean Magic Eraser works great. If your subject is dark, make sure the area surrounding it is light.

davidkhoirul

I usually paint shapes not background, and work from light to dark. Identifying all the elements in the painting as shapes rather than objects help you capture the lights and forms of the scene.

iamdaie

No rules. But the traditional approach to using watercolor is to paint from light to dark.

Thus if your background is light value, you might paint it first. On the other hand, if your background is dark value, you might paint it last.

Or not. Your choice.

Sling paint,
Virgil

tq sir

rabbitone

The “general pattern” method I use much of the time in landscape painting has worked well for me. The general pattern in my landscape painting is as follows. The order I use is large shapes(big brush) to small shapes(detail brush), wet-on-wet to wet-on-dry, light tone to dark tone and cool colors to warm colors. So using this “pattern method” I start with big shapes like the sky and the ground usually with wet-on-wet washes with a big brush (to get my soft edges in), while putting lighter tones in the back ground and then using cool colors in the distance. Then let it dry. Then as I move forward from the back ground to middle ground and fore ground I paint smaller shapes(detail brush), start using wet on dry techniques, next add darker tones and finish with warmer colors.

So this pattern method is my “general method” I use as a guide (it is NOT a hard and fast rule that works all the time). I have numerous paintings where I did not use this “general pattern” method.

Eliminate timidity. Failure is only experience to get us to the next level.