Techniques for painting on a blue background
(Click on the image to enlarge)
The color of the horse will be dark enough that I didn’t mask it, since any bit of color I get accidentally on him will be covered up. The first step was to do a plain water wash in the sky bits, and then drop in some Ultramarine Blue and Cobalt Blue and a smidgen of Manganese Blue Hue down on the right. After that was dry, I wet the rest of the background and dropped in Gamboge. All this was done with a size 16 round. Also, I placed a piece of wood 2 by 4 under the top end of my board so that there was a slight tilt to it. That helped the water and pigment move downward, keeping a wet edge so my washes would be smooth.
As you can see in the photo, I also did a cooler light green wash on the bottom, which will be grass, and avoided the dandelions.
When all of that was quite dry, I wet the tree sections again and began to drop in greens, varying the shades and values slightly, using Sap Green, Gamboge, Aureolin, Quinacridone Rust, Phthalo Green and Transparent Orange, using a slightly smaller brush. Certainly, you can use whatever you like to make greens, those are just the ones I used. Down near the horizon and the right side, I also added some Dioxazine Purple and dulled it with a bit of one of my green mixes. The I let all of this dry thoroughly.
As the need to put darker areas in came up, I only wet small sections at a time and often just put color in wet into dry, then softened the edges with a thirsty brush. (A thirsty brush is one that has been cleaned, dampened and had most of the water removed) In some places, I dropped wet into dry, cleaned my brush, dabbed it on a towel, but left some water in it and scrumbled the edges, (laid my brush flat on the paper at the edge of the paint and wiggled it away from the wet paint into dry paper) then soaked up some spots with a paper towel. Just have fun creating deeper colors and contrasts.
When that was done to my satisfaction, I again, let it dry. This time I let it dry over night. I wanted the color to be firmly in the paper so that my next step wouldn’t disturb it unduly. The next morning I used a soft Hake brush, loaded it with water and a very small amount of ultramarine blue and carefully laid the wash over all the painted area, starting at the top and working my way down the page. Then I left it for a day. That good soaking softened any hard edges that might be left and the slight blue blended all colors into a hazy distant look. In fact it was so fuzzy, I thought my camera was out of focus at first. Having the rest of the painting done will make it the proper background. I have most of it done, now and it does look a bit more “together”.
An Easy Way to Create a Blurry Background
This is a post I wrote in 2017 on my other website Jenzart Creations. That site is now devoted solely to my mosaics so I thought I would move the post to this site and share again with a bit of an update. I hope you like it.
I love those images where the foreground is in perfect focus and the background is just a blur. The blurry background really makes the subject “pop”. Here is a great example of what I mean in this painting by fellow Northern Rivers Artist, Katherine Castle.
“Conversations – Rainbow Lorikeets” by Katherine Castle
Sometimes achieving that blurry look in a painting can be tricky but I have found an easy way which I am about to share with you. You can follow this video which I created for Youtube a couple of years ago.
All you need is a blank canvas and some free-flowing acrylic paint in a few different colors. I have diluted the paint to a mix of one part paint, one part painting medium and one part water. Oh, and you will need some gloves and surface protection for the work table as this technique gets pretty messy (but fun).
See how to do it here.
After Posting This Video in 2017 This is What Happened
Funny story about the “Create a Blurry Background” video.
My original intention was to follow up this tutorial with another one where I show you how to add an in-focus image of a rainbow lorikeet. I haven’t quite got around to that one yet because of what happened.
When I posted this video it was my first-ever time on You-tube and I really didn’t have a clue how it all works. It was not surprise that, after posting online, the video got hardly any views at all. I quickly concluded that my Youtube effort had been a failure and proceeded to forget about it.
Anyway, fast forward two years and I make the decision to shift my focus from the mosaic part of my business back towards painting. In particular, I want to move towards teaching painting and start sharing what I know about art online. So I check out Youtube again and guess what?
My original video has close to 2000 views. What? How did that happen?
Well, I can only guess there are a lot of people out there, like me, who see how creating art can add so much to your life. These are the people who know they’ve got the creative stuff inside but just aren’t sure how to get the artist to emerge from within.
It Must Be a Sign
Anyway, I took it as a sign from the universe that teaching art online is the path that I should follow. It is so, so rewarding when something I share helps somebody else to improve their painting skills. I really hope that helping others to kick their art goals will be my legacy to the world. That is why I am working really hard right now to extract all my painting knowledge from the depths of my memory and get it out there in the world.
So, if you have seen the Create a Blurry Background video and found it useful please let me know by giving me a like. If you would like me to finish the sequence by adding the Rainbow Lorikeet tutorial, please let me know by leaving a comment.
I’ll be sharing lots more easy art techniques in the future so, if you don’t want to miss anything, please join my email list below.
