What's your background?

What's the importance of a background? Very much it seems. OK, I'm not art guru, I just want to note down a few observations (aka points).

A while ago, I posted a picture of Jaylisa in the sky with... not diamonds and although it wowed Joe, it didn't really do much for me. One of the main reasons was the clash between Jaylisa's green dress and the blue sky. Somehow it just didn't match for me. I finally redid the image with a background of trees and a foreground of grass and elicited this response from Joe:

"Wow Nov, this is amazing. You make me leap for joy. (I am leaping for joy). now I want to cry.
(I am crying now.) Tear,... cry,... sob. which cards is the background from."

That's a tad dramatic me thinks. Here are the images - pencils by Joe, colours with blue sky by me, final colours with trees and grass.



A quick glance will show that the eye is more drawn to the final image (with the trees and grass) because it's more pleasing to the eye and probably is soothing as well. So point number one: The background colour scheme is essential and in some cases is critical when trying to make a image look more attractive, eye-catching.

A while back as well, I did an image of a sword in a beam of light. I couldn't seem get the colouring right and at the end of the day, it just seemed very weird to me. Today as I was colouring Nazeri, I played with bands of colours for the background just for the fun of it so that I didn't have to show a blank white background and I realised why the sword didn't work for me.


Shown above is the sword on the left (pencils by Joe, colours by me) and the mid-way point coloured Nazeri on the right (pencils by Joe, colours by me). Notice any similarities between the two? Let's take the sword - the sword is pointing up, and the beam of light is pointing down. The eye gets confused as it tries to make out where to look. The image doesn't say - look at the sword, it seems instead to say - look post the edge of the image. That is why the sword fails for me.

Likewise with the Nazeri image, the horizontal bands of blue and white seems to beg the to look beyond the left and right side of the image, while Nazeri herself seems like an arrow pointing either to the top or to the bottom. In short, the eye does not know where to look and the effect of the image is lost.

So I went back and played with beam of lights and finally finished colouring Nazeri as shown below (pencils by Joe and me, colours by me):


What's different here? Well the horizontal bands are gone, and it's been replaced with a vertical band immediately behind Nazeri. The contrast of colours, with black on the side and white behind the magi draws the eye to the figure instead of away from the page. But what about the top and bottom? Well, lighting is always from the top, so it would seem natural to the eye, but it has to be stopped from leading the eye to the bottom of the page. That's where the rock shelf comes in. It stops the beam of light and brings the eye to focus on the magi instead. And that's point number two: Use the background colours and design to point to the object of the image. Try not to use it to lead the eye away to the edge of the image.

A less subtle reason of why Jaylisa in the sky didn't work so well was the fact that the sky background was too neutral, and instead it forced the eye to use the branch as a reference point which seems to also look weird in the sky. Now the forest setting did two things to the image - the background tree trunks and the foreground grass both pointed to the trunk and of course, the trunk doesn't look out of place in a field of grass in front of trees. So point number three: Make sure your background is suitable for the subject at hand. In other words, don't draw a background that would seem out of place with the subject.

So, what's your background on your image? How did you use it to enhance your image? Is it suitable or relevant? Does the colour scheme match with the object of the image? Does it direct the eye towards the centre of the image? A good background will do all of the above, and not stand out at the end of the day.