Lesson 15 "What should I put in the background?"

I frequently get asked "What should I put in the background?" looking at a painting someone has already invested significant time working on. The time to consider this is much earlier and the best way to see what works is to try studies of a small sample of the subject. Here Nancy has considered eight possibilities.


Each of these gives a different feeling and Nancy liked the drama of the bright blue green.
Here is a larger study.


Carol chose a compliment of the yellow flowers for her background.

Marge used a light version of the green found in the leaves for her study.


The second part of this exercise was to lay a background wash of on dry paper. By keeping the paper tilted and keeping a wet bead at the lower edge of the wash it is possible to paint around a subject and end up with a smooth background of color. Georgina was able to lay down an absolutely smooth yellow background.

Clara and Carlos

Here are the finished paintings of the peregrine pair Clara and Carlos with the chicks.

Lesson 14- Putting Figures in a Landscape

The first part of this problem is to search for shapes that will read as figures which are not posed.



The next part of the problem is to place the figures in a simple scene so that they appear to be receding in space. People are no different than fence posts in terms of perspective. They will decrease in size and fit into a cone formed from a reference figure and guide lines to a randomly chosen vanishing point.



It's fun to make up a simple scene, a beach or golf course or plaza, and add in several figures shapes.

Here are a few which were done in a short class session.



Judy had fun with figure shapes and put in a background afterwards.

Marjorie's bold green men could be the beginning of an abstract.

Fran's figures tied in nicely with the foreground.

Lesson 13 Shadows on Buildings

The purpose of this lesson was to consider the darkness and color of shadows. I always forget how long it takes to draw buildings and because our classes are only three hours long the examples below are only half completed. But I think there is enough there to see the interesting patterns shadows can make and how these can be used to organize a composition.

Jan made her shadows a darker version of the wall color and put them in 40% darker.

Kay has the shadows depicted lightly at this stage but you can already see what an interesting pattern they will make on the center building.

Teresa is using blue/violet for her shadows which work nicely against the bit of green lawn.