Should backgrounds be lighter or darker?
There is no one “right” answer to this question, as the best background color will depend on the overall aesthetic and mood you want to create with your painting. A lighter background color can create a more airy or peaceful atmosphere, while a darker background color can create a more dramatic or moody atmosphere. Consider the mood and atmosphere you want to create, the color scheme of the rest of the painting, the use of color in the artwork overall, and the composition of the painting when selecting a background color.
Use black as the background color for painting
One thing I do with black or dark backgrounds is go in with a white charcoal pencil for the initial sketch, and lightly block in a value map at the start. Like I was doing the charcoal-then-pastel tonal method Jackie Simmonds does, but in reverse with white charcoal. Go quite heavy in the white and lightest areas, then lighter and lighter till it fades to black. Then go over that with my colors and start layering. Light bright tones look wonderful on black and so do deep intense colors like Ultramarine or dark browns. THe cool thing is that letting some of the surface come through gives special luminosity to light and bright colors. The value sketch approach lets me intensify the light values but doesn’t always fill in the black specks except at the lightest lights. So that’s how I do it and that approach works for pastels, oil pastels and colored pencils. It’s essential with colored pencils, not totally necessary with soft pastel though if I don’t do a white undersketch I will start by drawing highlights and mid tones and work with the lighter colors first, leaving whole areas black and working into them down the value scale.
Robert A. Sloan, proud member of the Oil Pastel Society
Site owner, artist and writer of http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com
blogs: Rob’s Art Lessons and Rob’s Daily Painting
January 18, 2015 at 5:43 pm #1218056
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In my experience, it will depend a lot on the type of paper and the softness and brand of the pastels. Many brands of pastels will not have very dark pastels, so many artists supplement by getting dark sets or individual dark pastels in some of the softer brands. Softer pastels – in general – are more opaque, so if you have some pastel already down and you need to go darker, you may need a softer pastel to cover opaquely. Paper matters, too. The more tooth, the better the ability to cover and layer. You can use darker papers, but I have never done so. At the risk of being wishy-washy, you can paint the background first or later. If you are painting something with a lot of detail on the edges, I would normally paint the background color first. This doesn’t mean that I need to fill in the entire background, but my background will overlap the foreground subject to avoid creating a halo. This way the majority of my lighter foreground object can still be painted without blending into dark pastel underneath. If you need to paint the entire background first, then in order to get bright light colors over the top, you may need: 1) softer pastels (more opaque) for the light colors, 2) use fixative on the backgound, 3) use a wet underpainting for the dark background. Don
January 18, 2015 at 7:30 pm #1218057
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Mike Beeman contributes to this forum. You might try a PM or contact him thru his website. Like Don, I would lay in the dark background & then wash it. Makes for less mud. Be sure you then block in your mid and light values so you don’t get lost.
“there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women”
Madeleine Albright
January 20, 2015 at 4:35 am #1218052
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Right, what I responded with first was to use dark paper and get a light subject on a dark background that way. If I am doing it on middle value or light paper, I’ll underpaint with dry pastels or if working on white, a watercolor wash. Block in the basic values with similar or complementary color. Whether I paint the background first or the subject really depends on what I am doing. I plan it though, for lighter and darker areas. I avoid haloing by working right up to the subject at the underpainting layer. I’ll go back and forth over the edge in areas where I want a soft edge like a cat’s rear end receding into the dark, also shade darker toward it sometimes. When I want something like fur to go over dark, I’ll rub the dark into the subject but actually blend tha little bit before working softer lighter color over it. I don’t use the same techniques every time. It depends a lot on subject and paper. If I am working around a hard edged object I may deliberately halo by doing strokes starting at the edge working outward, not a clumsy halo but an outright one, and then start doing the background with short strokes every which way to end that effect. I will often take the exact color behind the subject and extend that into random protrusions and shapes to break up the halo effect too. That was where I had the biggest problem, say it’s against foliage so I go around the subject with a mid-dark green and though I variegate the background, around the subject it all turns the same hue and value. So I’ll pull that hue and value out in different shapes and play with the light, also deliberately shade it different colors and values. Dark isn’t always black. Going over some dark colors with others may even deepen them. I don’t usually do flat dark backgrounds any more, just variegate them and use a variety of colors both muted and not. It works better that way. If it’s going to be black in whole or part I’ll still vary the strokes. But it looks better gradated with a hue even if that hue is gray or brown. And as in my previous post, I’ll often opt for black or dark paper to start with if I’m doing that. It’s easy to put light and bright colors over black and get that to work well, not so easy to put dark over white without a lot more layering. Black Colourfix paper is wonderful. Back when I had my collection of primers and didn’t just rely on Clear, I could actually set the dark and light by choosing primer color and use the priming as my underpainting. It works great that way.
Robert A. Sloan, proud member of the Oil Pastel Society
Site owner, artist and writer of http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com
blogs: Rob’s Art Lessons and Rob’s Daily Painting
January 20, 2015 at 5:19 am #1218059
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Bethany, Theodora Blau (or Dorothea Blau) one of our regular posters in the gallery, does wonderful still life. She has been putting up her recent works in step by step for us to see. She needs to use dark paper. Go back a page or two in gallery and look for her pomegranate, her plums, ….just beautiful and you can see her process with the background. Just looked. She goes by theodorablau and the pomegranate is only one page back. You go use her name to find the other fruit posts where she shows the steps. Lovely work especially plums, peaches. All dark background
Happy to say “hello”. C and C always welcome. JAY:wave:
January 20, 2015 at 10:29 am #1218062
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Thank you all so much! I’m not sure what “haloing” looks like – I’m probably doing it and didn”t even know that’s a no-no! ha. I think I understand a bit more about washing it on but leaving areas free of pastel to then cover with subject matter (flowers, foliage, fruit, bowls etc.) I use mostly Terry Ludwig darks and they are just so DUSTY! I feel like half of my pastel ends up in the trough when I’m trying to tone the paper darker. I think I would like to start with a darker toned paper to begin with so I don’t waste so much pastel. I haven’t attempted to save the dust and re-form pastels yet. But I might! I’ll check out Dorothea’s work Jay, thank you! I remember seeing her pomegranate. Beautiful! Happy Tuesday!
January 21, 2015 at 8:56 am #1218053
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Bethany, that must be so frustrating trying to cover an entire background with Terry Ludwig darks. They are beautiful and I have a bunch of them. What I’d do is paint the background first with hard pastels, inexpensive ones, underpaint that with one dark chosen to be warm or cool. Maybe not quite as deep dark as the Ludwigs because I like to gradate my backgrounds and variegate them, but if I wanted black I’d use black. Then use my fingers to scrub that into the paper. Go right up to the edge of the figures and other subjects but not quite over it, creating a hard edge that can be softened. THen later on in painting go over that dark or black rubbed in flat background with Ludwig darks. Just start playing with hues and diferent colors, gradate it through the color wheel or jazz it up by interspersing strokes in complements. I’d include some light enough you could see the color unless it was supposed to be a flat black background. That’d give it the velvety texture and particular hues of Ludwig darks but use up much less of them. Sometimes the pure black is just cool by itself and I’d just scumble something else lightly over the underpainted black to call it done and give it texture. But I really love how this looks on black Colourfix. If it was black Mi-Tientes sometimes I’d want to lightly add more darks over it because the paper surface catches too much light and looks very charcoal. Something about the Colourfix keeps it looking black even without anything over it. Black Stonehenge paper also looks really black without anything on it, but depending on the light can get glare. It’s just a deeper darker black, maybe it’s the fine vellum surface. That’s what prompted the thought of getting black Colourfix primer again, because laying in the value scheme on watercolor paper before priming, doing a notan with the primer would be a very powerful way to set up for a painting with a black background. Haloing: this is what happens when you work the background around the subject but don’t quite touch the subject, and all the strokes in the background sort of outline it and follow its form. I will sometimes put lighter background colors behind a subject to draw attention to it but when I do, I run the risk of haloing. My best way of breaking it up is to pull out the light color area into its own abstract shape so it’s something else, a break in the clouds or whatever, not following the form. I went looking for an example but unfortunately I don’t have photos of my art before around last July, a point I was pretty good at avoiding it.
Robert A. Sloan, proud member of the Oil Pastel Society
Site owner, artist and writer of http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com
blogs: Rob’s Art Lessons and Rob’s Daily Painting
January 21, 2015 at 9:38 am #1218060
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Bethany, you might want to explore the variety of wet underpainting techniques — using water, alcohol, odorless mineral spirits, and even undiluted Spectrafix to dissolve roughed-in pastel; watercolor; thinned oil paint; and my favorite, Inkense (which look unimpressive when drawn in, but explode when you hit the drawing with a wet brush!). Best, Evelyn
January 21, 2015 at 11:19 am #1218054
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Evelyn, yes! Agree with you on that wholeheartedly, including Inktense. It really helps to do wet underpainting, the main reasons I don’t are pure logistic ones. Doing it means getting up to get the alcohol or water and then waiting for it to dry, when a dry underpainting makes it possible for me to keep going while I still feel good. The results are gorgeous with wet underpainting. Also a little goes a long way with it. Just scumbling pastel and then washing it in with alcohol will make the colors sink in and bind deep to the paper, so you don’t have to use as much. Soft ones like Terry Ludwigs can be used for it. If I wanted to use V100 deep dark violet for a “black” background richer than black, an alcohol wash would let me do just one quick layer of it and then wash it in, getting good deep dark over the whole area and mid-violets where I pull color out of it onto white areas. Might try that in my pastel journal where I’m using 200lb watercolor paper that will stand up to the treatment well. Once an alcohol or water wash dries, then it’s like working on bare paper as for tooth of paper.
Robert A. Sloan, proud member of the Oil Pastel Society
Site owner, artist and writer of http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com
blogs: Rob’s Art Lessons and Rob’s Daily Painting
February 21, 2015 at 6:17 am #1218050
I like to use a dark paper if I want a rich, contrasty look…..and a light paper if I want a light, airy atmospheric look. the paper colour can be a strong influence. BLACK PAPER
hOWEVER, you can still achieve strong contrasts on a lighter paper. This paper was a neutral grey: 
Self explanatory!:
Getting that “pop” you talk about, is all about getting the tones right in the image. Good strong contrasts, in the right places, will provide “pop”, no matter what colour paper you use, as I think I have shown above.
http://www.jackiesimmonds.com
Consider the mood and atmosphere you want to create
One important factor to consider when choosing a background color for a painting is the mood and atmosphere you want to create. Different background colors can evoke different feelings and emotions, so it’s important to think about the overall aesthetic and tone you want to convey.
For a more dramatic or moody atmosphere, using a darker background color can be effective. Darker colors tend to be more intense and can create a sense of mystery or drama. They can also create a sense of depth and distance, making the other elements in the painting feel more prominent.
On the other hand, if you want to create a more airy or peaceful atmosphere, using a lighter background color can be a good choice. Lighter colors tend to be softer and more subtle, creating a sense of tranquility or calm. They can also create a sense of openness and space, making the other elements in the painting feel more light and airy.
Overall, the mood and atmosphere you want to create with your painting should be a key consideration when choosing a background color.
Think about the color scheme of the rest of the painting
Another factor to consider when choosing a background color for a painting is the color scheme of the rest of the artwork. The background color can either complement or contrast with the other colors in the painting, so it’s important to think about how it will fit in with the overall color scheme.
One option is to use a background color that is the opposite of the dominant colors in the painting. This can create a strong contrast and draw the viewer’s attention to the other elements in the artwork. For example, if the dominant colors in the painting are warm, using a cool-toned background color can create a strong contrast.
Another option is to use a neutral or monochromatic background color to balance out a colorful painting. This can help to create a cohesive look and prevent the overall color scheme from becoming too busy or overwhelming. Using a neutral or monochromatic background can also allow the other elements in the painting to stand out more.
Overall, it’s important to consider how the background color will fit in with the rest of the color scheme when creating a painting.
Consider the use of color in the painting overall
In addition to considering the mood and atmosphere you want to create and the color scheme of the rest of the painting, it’s also important to consider the use of color in the artwork overall when choosing a background color. The background color can have a significant impact on the overall color scheme and can either create contrast or harmony with the other colors in the painting.
One way that a background color can affect the overall color scheme is by influencing the way the other colors in the painting are perceived. For example, using a warm-toned background color can make the other colors in the painting appear cooler while using a cool-toned background color can make the other colors appear warmer.
Another way that a background color can affect the overall color scheme is by creating contrast or harmony with the other colors in the painting. Using a background color that is similar in hue to the other colors in the painting can create a sense of harmony while using a background color that is different in hue can create contrast.
Overall, it’s important to consider how the background color will fit in with the rest of the color scheme and how it will affect the overall use of color in the painting.
