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Mixing Colors for Painting Backgrounds

February 18, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge Leave a Comment

Landscape Mountains Lake River

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” — Edgar Degas

The background of a painting creates the atmosphere for the entire artwork. The success of the subject matter comes to life as the viewer steps into the background, becomes engaged, and is guided to the point of focus.

A close up of a flower, a bowl of fruit, a mountain cabin on a lake, or a distant star on the horizon all need to relate to a harmonious background. Closeups, still life, portraits, and landscapes are all sustained and strengthened by the background’s visual story.

The background forms the stage and is a big part of what the artist is wishing to convey. It should complement the middle ground and foreground while infusing light, depth, harmony, and visual appeal.

Planning Your Colors

Before you rush into painting the background, do a little prep work. By now you should have the Double Primary Palette set up and are ready to begin mixing paint hues for the background application. You have your scrap in hand and an idea of the composition of your painting.

In the same way you learned how to mix the correct value percentages for blue and cloudy skies, the base mixes for this area of your painting will start with primarily these 4 dull colors plus white.

The four dull colors are:

  1. Ultramarine Blue
  2. Alizarin Crimson
  3. Yellow Ochre
  4. Naples Yellow

At times your painting’s background will also need to include the other two dull colors: Burnt Umber and Raw Sienna that are also used when painting cloudy skies.

Mixing background colors
Example of how to mix background colors, keeping the hues in the range values between 10 to 55 percent.

Follow the plan as you see illustrated above when using these four dull colors and create three mixes of blue, red, and yellow as your base background colors. You can also use this same technique using the two other dull colors if needed.

As you apply the paint to your canvas, the mixes are blended again according to your scrap or your color guide plan.

To keep harmony always mix by adding a little red, yellow, and blue to each mix.

Remember, the background value should never exceed 55% or it will become too dominant. The viewer’s eye will get confused and your painting will lose its sense of atmosphere.

Applying The Background Paint

How to mix background palette colors

It’s important to always think in values as you see in a greyscale based on degrees of ten. As you move from the background forward, always add 10% detail as you get closer to the middle ground. The above sample painting is the background slice of a larger image.

The next tutorial will provide instruction on painting background mountains. These majestic structures need additional instruction before we move to the middle ground paint colors, values, and their intensity.


Table of Contents for the Perfect Palette Series

  1. The Many Hues of Color
  2. Best Palette Colors to Build Depth
  3. The Double Primary Palette
  4. Painting Blue and Cloudy Skies
  5. Mixing Colors for Painting the Background
  6. Painting Mountains
  7. How the Middle Ground Creates Harmony
  8. Stepping Into the Foreground
  9. Laying Down Foreground Foundations: Rocks, Tree Mounds, etc.

How the Middle Ground Creates Harmony

February 18, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge Leave a Comment

Distinct foreground, middle ground, and background values and intensity
Photo example showing distinct contrast between foreground, middle ground, and background values.

“It is the brushwork of the right value and color which should produce the drawing.” —Camille Pissarro

Space, as defined in art, relates to the relationship of the elements in your composition to each other.

A typical layout will include these three spaces:

  1. Background
  2. Middle Ground
  3. Foreground

In most painting compositions the foreground is what appears closest to the viewer.

The Double Primary Palette paint colors include six dull colors. These manufactured paint hues have less intensity, luminosity, saturation, or concentrated pigment than the brights colors.

The dull colors may appear intense but when blended to the right percentages they work best to illustrate the values needed for backgrounds.

“Dull Color Recap:  Alizarin Crimson, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber, and White.

7 bright colors for building your paletteThe middle ground in your painting needs to appear to the eye’s perception to come forward.

This requires a greater intensity of color, thus the need to increase the percentage of color and the color value and saturation. To achieve this, one bright color is added to your mixes.

Bright Color Recap: Mauve, Windsor Emerald, Windsor Red, New Gamboge, Burnt Sienna, Windsor Blue, Cadmium Orange.

Middle Ground = 2 Dulls + 1 Bright

The  tutorial image below shows how the size, value, and intensity increases in the middle ground in comparison to the background. Following the illustrated percentages and adding red, yellow, and blue to each mix we create both harmony and continuity.  The Double Primary Palette makes this easy to achieve.

How to mix paint hues for the middle ground
The colors are abbreviated using the first and second letter of their name.

Hills will appear darker at the top and lighter at the bottom and become 10% darker as they move forward. Background percentages are best kept between 20 and 35. In the middle ground, the best percentage range is between 40 and 55. (reference your scrap).

When mixing your colors, start with the value first and add dominant colors last.

Types of Paintings

Value describes the lightness to darkness of hues and intensity is the brightness. Once you have the composition of your painting mapped out, consider these three key descriptions of a painting and how it pertains to value and intensity:

  • High Key: The dark areas create appeal in the artwork and a high contrast may exist between the elements.
  • Low Key: The white areas create interest and draw the eye in the artwork.
  • Intermediate: The whitest white and darkest dark sell the painting. Everything else is a greyed out scale.

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The next two tutorials in the Perfect Painting Palette Series will provide the keys for painting the foreground areas. You’ll learn underpainting tips for these areas along with tree bases and examples of how to paint rocks.


Table of Contents for the Perfect Palette Series

  1. The Many Hues of Color
  2. Best Palette Colors to Build Depth
  3. The Double Primary Palette
  4. Painting Blue and Cloudy Skies
  5. Mixing Colors for Painting the Background
  6. Painting Mountains
  7. How the Middle Ground Creates Harmony
  8. Stepping Into the Foreground
  9. Laying Down Foreground Foundations: Rocks, Tree Mounds, etc.

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