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How do you decide what to do with the backgrounds of your paintings? Continuing the Backgrounds Should Never Be an Afterthought theme, today I will take you through my intuitive process.

Intuitive Backgrounds.*

My reference photo was very good, and though I thought I would do something similar with the background, I wanted to allow it to evolve, rather than force it.

Underpainting.

On this piece, I knew I wanted a soft, ethereal background, so I began laying in Quinacridone Gold wet-on-dry. The gold would establish the warm areas on the bird and the rooftop. I also painted outside of the lines to begin to establish the composition. While the paint was still damp, I added a few pops of Aureolin (cool yellow) to the focal area.

Begin Painting the Subject.

I began establishing the local color by applying a mixture of warm reds to the bird and adding cool blues to the shadow areas. I let a few areas bleed into the background; looking back, I wish I'd been a bit more brave!

Continuing on...

It was time to begin creating some depth on the bird. The darks always look too dark at first, but I know the rest of the painting will catch up eventually. Again, I wasn't very brave adding more color to the background, but I did begin to establish the feathers being preened by painting around them. I also added color behind the bird to connect the roof and improve the composition.

Approaching Completion.

I continued to glaze areas of the bird to brighten the red and indicate form and feathers. I got a little braver and darkened the background shapes by adding blue, which made me realize that I didn't like that big white space on the bottom left.

I also realized that I needed to incorporate some reds into the background to harmonize with the bird (allow your subject to guide your background).

Fine Tuning.

I finally built up my courage to dampen the entire background and drop in pure yellows, blues and warm reds to create a pleasing connection to the bird.

Final touches included softening edges and lifting highlights and soft feathers with a damp brush. Can you see the subtle highlights in the image above?

In this painting, the background was created at the same time as the subject, rather than separately. Next month I will walk you through my intuitive process of creating a background on a portrait painting.

Paint. Love. Repeat.

*Keep in mind that the background is the space around the subject that should support and enhance the subject, not detract or distract from it.