The best background for creating good values is grey. Less harsh on the eyes and gives your eyes an easy way to see lights and darks even in highly saturated colours.
I've draw with gray backgrounds simply because it doesn't strain my eyes as much lol, just make sure to check the colors throughout with the background color you're gonna use cause it really does effect how our eyes see the colors.
What color should I use if I want to make those type of dark paintings,like the ones with a lot of shadows and it’s in a „dark place“ Like I want it to be cold tones(colors like blue)
I start with 50% plain grey, because I don't want to be influenced by the bg color at all. I want to objectively see how light and how dark the colors I choose actually are. Only after the values are on point do I add a wash to unify the colors.
i'm the opposite. i hate adding washes to unify at the end. it works, sure, but it always feels like a bandaid solution, and it leaves the whole piece too muted and too analogous to be very visually interesting. having a colored background allows me to pick colors wisely from the start, so i don't have to sacrifice strong contrasts and fun color choices, and i still get a unified piece. i don't think it matters how "objectively" light and dark everything is, anyway, because we never see color objectively, we see it relative to what's around it, so designing art with that in mind works just fine.
@mitsuomits9077 Colors don't always look like they belong together on a painting. An easy way to make them cohesive is to add a very thin wash of one color over the whole piece, just enough to slightly tint everything with that color.
💛⭐️🌙I really like the yellow background one! It’s really pretty! I’m guilty of doing this a lot, I’ll try to push myself to do this a little bit more, but I’ll probably forget sometimes, & it will take me a little bit of time to get used to, Thank you Bekah!⭐️💛🌙 Edit: oh my gosh, thank you so much, this is the most amount of likes I’ve gotten on a comment 😭 thank you 🥹
❤️❤️❤️❤️@@bekahart I probably will really soon, thank you so much, I’ll try doing it soon because I have some free time this weekend & don’t really know what to do lol, I also really want to make some art progress, thank you for being so awesome Bekah!❤️❤️❤️❤️
in some apps, you can adjust the basic background from white to any colour... i set up my clip studio to always load in with a reddish brown colour. i also did the same a few years ago with the mobile version of medibang!
Yeah, depending on what you usually use to colour (unless you work in black and white or grayscale) you could use light washes of your desired paint. I think a light wash of watercolour, because it doesn’t change the texture of the paper in the way thicker paints do. Though using any wash of any kind might limit you to only use thicker paints to colour, instead of watercolour or markers, if that’s your thing. I know that a large percent of oil painters usually give their canvas a light wash of a colour they want their brush to pick up and blend with other colours as they paint. I wish there were more alternatives to work like that with different mediums. :’)
Figuring out what colors go together on a white backgroud is the fun part for me. It might take me a little longer but its less limiting. And the satisfaction of getting a good color pallette is worth it imo
I do the same! Plus I can't afford a lot of paint so I have to be sparing with it, so I can't afford to color the background... I'd love to try sometime, but my braid doesn't work that way. 😅
Even when drawing characters from fandoms who have established colors, I go HARD on color pallettes. I take like 4 different pictures of them and color pick like 30 different shades of each color, then choose my favorite combo 😭. It takes me like an hour and I love it
I generally use a dark grey background! It's partially cause I just don't wanna deal with the eye strain of a white background, but it's also cause I use light desaturated colors for sketching. I didn't realize it could help with color theory, but that makes a lot of sense!
Omg I realized this the other day. I usually work on black, but i used primer that made the paper more dark gray and it made it so it was close enough to black that it didn't hurt my eyes to work on it and adds automatic shadow, but it was light enough that I could put true black onto it with purpose and have it stand out from the rest of the paper. I immediately thought where can I but dark grey paper when black is hard enough to come by...
Bob Ross was a person that taught me things like this. My dad was someone who painted a lot, and he and I would watch Bob Ross together. Watching him paint on Black or Red was amazing
Only problem is those background colors except the green are so painful to look at. I don't use white, either because it's p a i n xD Mostly a grays and browns user here. Muted colors could work, sure, but those won't have the same effect as shown here.
Muted colors can absolutely have the same effect! If you choose a butter yellow, you'll still be picking colors that you think look good with the butter yellow. I kind of did this accidentally for a time by cutting out black and white and using natural canvas or paper and burnt umber. I actually made some fairly vibrant pieces, but the colors had to fit within that vanilla bean-ish spectrum and my work looked a lot more cohesive.
Quick question, you have made a LOT of “poison paint” how do you get rid of it and the glass you mix it on safely and without harming the people you collect the garbage? And the tools? I love your videos btw ❤
What I like to do is create a color palette way before drawing. Putting the colors in one circle together and lableing them makes things easier for me.
Huh, thanks for the tip. :) I usually start off with a white background and change the color at the end. My main goal for coloring digitally is making sure the colors don't look the same when you turn it black+white 😅
This is such a good tip thank you!! I also need to stop drawing on white because it gives me eye strain. Hopefully this will help me remember to change the color next time
something beautiful i noticed is how the 3 colours you used each have a different shade and saturation, and to me it looks like the character has a slightly different expression in each setting, the overall pieces have slightly different tones! yellow looks neutral, pink looks cute and bubbly but also quite harsh /pos from the strong reds, and green looks mute and sad /pos it’s very beautiful how all of that comes just from colouring and lighting, i definitely need to try this technique sometime! also, my favourite is green
I HAVE BEEN SEARCHING ENDLESSLY FOR A VIDEO LIKE THIS!! Thank you so much omg. I’m self-taught when it comes to color theory (I’m still learning the basics) and it can be so challenging to keep myself from overanalyzing my starting point 😭
Going to art school sounds like so much more knowledge of everything I'd like to learn about art, but since I can't, I deeply appreciate these new things I get to learn. I never really understood or tried out the concept of using a non white background. I might just do things differently now.
That’s a really good way to put it, I had this exact thought process for oil pastel on colored felt paper cause I would adjust the entire color palette based on the color of the felt paper
I always make my background grey, with a hue to it (usually red). It's so much easier on the eyes and having the slightest amount of color really helps my work.
This is the best way to explain it. It keeps you in a color family group. I've always heard artists just say it just makes it easier without explaining. Thanks!
Great tip! I usually try to use a colour that matches the 'vibe' of the drawing, then change it later if there isn't enough contrast. I'm suprised more people don't do this.
i use white background to draw my sketchs and lineart bcs it's easier to focus, also when i don't need to have a colored background bcs i only want to know how a character look and when i desing them, it's easier to have a white background, you don't always need a colored background tbh, whote backgrounds are useful sometimes
Green!! I think it looks autumny or melancholic in a super pretty way. Don't think I have seen "green light" as that before, but it doesn't look unnatural, just pretty 😊
That is way deeper than the reason I colour the background first before drawing 😅 I just find it easier to actually start drawing if I'm not staring at a perfect clean white surface
I do character designs with a transparent background, but for my comic i do gradient backgrounds and set all my colors, Outlines, and stuff to multiply
My go-to is a light tan color for the background. Just a bit darker & more orange in tone than khaki. I pick from that midpoint between yellow & orange on a color slider wheel. It feels easier on my eyes than the other colors I've tried imo.
I personally use the white background for rhe simple reason of it allows me to actually see the spots I missed while coloring. I tried on grays of all forms and other colors, but white always helps me see best. I also always start off with a set of colors in my head like a moodboard.
oh that is interesting!! i always start with pale pink background but i thought i do that because white background is very bright and it hurts my eyes!! 😭 good to know that there is more complex reason for changing the background color, also explains why picking colors on colored background is much easier for me (on white background my brain honestly just stops working)
My great grandmother was an artist and I always wondered as a little girl why I could always see bright pops of cerulean under the portraits. This is why ❤
