Now comes the fun part – colouring your background! A handy tip is to keep 80% of your image in either a warm or cool tone, and the other 20% in the opposite tone. This creates a strong contrast which makes your background more eye-catching and interesting to look at. It can also be a good idea to put the tone you have less of around your focal point, to draw extra attention to it.
How to draw amazing backgrounds in five simple steps
Former What’s Your Story? participant and comic artist Georgia McLellan shares some handy tips for making sure the background sings when you sit down to draw a comic panel or page.
Audience: Writers, Young People
Topics: Creative writing, Writing tips
Last updated: 28 July 2022
Loved and loathed, admired and agonized over – background art remains a struggle for many artists. This step-by-step tutorial will help guide you smoothly through the often daunting process, without the fuss and confusion.
Step 1 – Choose your focus
Firstly, what is the purpose of your background? Is it to draw attention to a character, highlight a piece of scenery, or tell a story? The idea is to draw the viewer’s eye towards your chosen focus.
The rule of thirds is a helpful trick for doing this. Divide a piece of paper into six equal boxes by drawing two lines vertically and two horizontally. According to theory, wherever the lines cross over, the eye will be drawn. Keep this in mind when deciding where to position your focal point.
Step 2 – Laying the foundations
Now you can create the foundations for your background.
On a new piece of paper, draw one long horizontal line. This is called the horizon line. If you keep this low, your image will be more dynamic and interesting.
The next step is to pick an area on your horizon line. This is called a vanishing point. From your chosen point, draw straight lines outwards like the rays of a sun. This will help you to create a three-dimensional space where you can place your objects proportionally. Adding faint horizontal lines across the page can also help to visualise the space.
What is watercolor background painting?
The watercolor background painting is the process of utilizing watercolors to create a background for your artwork. The background should not be a last-minute addition. It’s a significant portion of the overall composition. It can assist your painting to tell its story by adding context, emphasis, and attention to your subject. It can also provide color and contrast to your painting.
Similar to normal watercolor painting, in order to paint a watercolor background, you will have to prepare some main materials such as watercolor paints, watercolor brushes, and watercolor papers. In addition, you can prepare other things like stencils, salt, tapes, etc based on your needs since the background painting gives a lot of space for your imagination.
Watercolor paints
They are primary materials to make a painting including background. You can choose M Graham professional watercolors which are created with exceptional amounts of pigment in a time-honored binding medium of pure gum arabic and natural blackberry honey. In addition, Daniel Smith watercolors are also highly suggested because of their excellent lightfastness.
Watercolor brush
They are the main tools for you to create a background. You can use wet brushes or dry brushes to load with watercolors and make your unique background painting but they need to meet some required standards for artists. In this case, we can recommend Simply Simmons watercolor brushes which are handmade and offer excellent performance, dependability, and value at one low price, no matter what the size. Besides, you also can consider Black Velvet watercolor brushes with a soft blend that allows multiple-layer glazing without disturbing previous colors.
Watercolor papers
Last but not least, choosing watercolor papers is also important. The quality of watercolor papers you choose can affect the quality of background paintings and also the shelf-life of your artwork. Therefore, you should choose the high-quality and suitable one for painting the background. Fabriano artistico watercolor papers are among the best options which are mold-made of 100% cotton, double-sized, acid-free/neutral pH, chlorine-free. Another good option is Bee watercolor papers which are also 100% cotton, acid-free, cold-pressed watercolor sheets with excellent value.
15 cool watercolor background ideas
Because art is about passion and creation, each person will come up with their own ideas for a unique watercolor background. However, many individuals have tried and succeeded with several watercolor background painting techniques and concepts. As a result, we’ve compiled a list of 15 cool watercolor background ideas that you may use as inspiration for your work without spending time on any watercolor background painting tutorials.
Gentle watercolor gradient
A watercolor gradient is a great method to make a smooth and easy background for lettering, embossing, mixed media painting, or art journaling. Firstly, put the artist’s tape to all the edges of the paper to ensure a clean border after painting. Then choose the color you want, load the brush with color and start painting from the top of the page moving down to the bottom. Add water to your paint as you continue. This will water down the pigment you are picking up on your brush – this means the color will get lighter and lighter as you continue painting. After that, you can load more color to the brush and make another layer to get a more gradient effect.
Dripping watercolor
This watercolor background is unpredictable, messy, and a lot of fun to work with. Starting with a thick line across the sheet, using a lot of paint and water in the brush. After that, tilt the page and tap your paper to get the water to start rolling down the sheet. More water can be added to areas where you desire more drops.
Blending watercolor
Choose two or more colors to blend. Then start painting one of your chosen colors on one side of your watercolor paper. While it is still wet, paint your second color to the other side and move the colors into one another to blend them .
Scumbling
T o make this – scumbling background, you will need a dry brush. Firstly, remove some wet paint from your palette with that dry brush. To get some pigment out of your paints, softly activate them using a spray bottle. Then, scrub the paper’s surface with a paintbrush in a circular and ‘rubbing’ motion. This adds a fascinating texture to your backdrop, and you can use a variety of colors to do so.
Wet on Wet
Wet-on-wet is a watercolor method in which you paint with wet paint on wet paper. You may create imaginative effects in which the pigment appears to move and bloom magically on the paper surface. When you paint this method, you always find it fascinating to see how the color travels and dries.
Wet on Dry
This is another important technique that you can use to create your background. It’s made by applying a wash to paper. After it has dried, paint over it. Because watercolor is transparent, the bottom layer will most likely be visible behind that stroke.
Graded wash
A graded wash illustrates a light-to-dark transition. Begin by painting darkly, using the most pigment in your brush, and dragging it across the page. Apply less pigment to your brush on the second pass, and swipe it across the paper so that it slightly overlaps your first line. The two groups will merge and eventually resemble one another. Repeat this process, reducing the amount of pigment until you achieve the desired tone range.
Coarse salt on watercolors
This is a really interesting watercolor background idea. When coarse salt is sprinkled across a wet watercolor surface, it dries into intriguing speckles and patterns. Firstly, using your chosen watercolor color, paint the paper’s surface. Then sprinkle coarse salt onto the watercolor while it is still wet and allow it to dry. Finally, remove the salt once it has dried.
Watercolor stencil background
Stenciling a watercolor background is a lot of fun. To get the desired results, you can either make your own stencils or purchase stencils online. There are several stencils to select from, including flowers, animals, and text.
Splatter watercolor painting
Splatters are such wild and spontaneous backgrounds. This watercolor background is simple to produce but can make your watercolor paintings unique. To begin, keep in mind that the amount of paint and water in your brush will affect the spatter. Wet your brush and load it with paint and water. Tap the brush with another brush, pen, or pencil to send your paint flying across the paper in a dance of pigment.
Watercolor shadow
It is a good idea to choose a basic shadow to ground your painted subject and add realism to your painting. To make the color of a shadow, blend a little of the main color in your subject with a little black and white watercolor paint.
Watercolor grass
Your painting will be more lively if you can add some watercolor grass as background.
Coffee splashes
This watercolor background painting will be a lot of fun to make. This watercolor background is ideal for art journaling since it allows you to create unique and entertaining designs
Simple fade-out watercolor background
You can make use of this simple fade-out background when you want your painting to be outstanding and natural but the highlight is still on the main subject. You just need to paint a soft, simplistic wash of color that faded into the background. Blot watercolor background
Minimalist blank
There is no rule about what type of background you should make. Sometimes, it is better to let it be natural. In reality, many people prefer a clean, simple background. This looks fantastic with botanical art.
FAQs
Do you paint the background first in watercolor?
This is highly dependent on the type of painting you’re doing. Some professional watercolor artists would frequently begin working on the subject first and then develop ideas for the background. However, it is better to paint the background first if you want to create a poster or a design with letters
Can you paint watercolor on top of watercolor?
Definitely yes. You can paint a wash of watercolor paint, let it dry, and then paint another wash on top of it. You can keep doing this to develop your shadow areas and add depth to your color.
