Hello lovely students!

I hope this message finds you well.

I want to address a question posted on a review of the painting class on how to paint blurry backgrounds. First, thank you Zina for asking the question! I really appreciate feedback, as it helps me provide better classes in the future. In fact, I'm currently working on a class for March about painting dynamic skies using acrylics, so be on the lookout for that!

Now, to discuss the question. The question was about which colours to choose for the background. Easiest answer would be to stick with Analogous Colours (usually 3-4 colors including: one primary colour and then the colours side-by-side before the next primary colour). So let's say you have a reddish brown bird and you want to use the complementary colour to make it pop, so you choose a blue-ish background. So, maybe our colours could be blue-green, blue, blue-violet, violet. I like my background to be more subdued, so mix a little white here and there and then if the blue is too vibrant you can add its complementary colour to dullen it (a warm tone like a raw sienna is a great one to dull a bold blue).

You can also go with monochromatic, which is different values of one hue. Sometimes it's fun to just use different blues (or whatever colour) for a background, and then throw in a little white to push the background further back.

Try it in your sketchbook first and then you'll know for sure which colours you want to use.

Until next time, happy painting practice!

Kristina

Examples below:

Analogous

Monochromatic

Primary/Complementary

Kristina (Moyor) Choy

fine artist

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