How to Draw Backgrounds Like a Pro

Want tips to drawing backgrounds of your artwork like a pro? Saying yes? No worries, just read this post till the end as this post says it all!

There are a lot of things that artists can draw.

For example, artists can draw a house, a landscape, mountains, fruits, a cityscape, galaxy, or a portrait.

Do you know one thing that all artists draw in their drawings or sketches?

The answer is simple: Drawing Backgrounds!

Thus, we’re looking at how to draw backgrounds for this post.

Yes, it is right! Drawing the backgrounds of a painting is one of the biggest yet most important parts of an artwork that almost every artist must do.

Today I will show you how you can draw a background like a pro.

These are some of the easiest to get into drawing background ideas and should help you learn how to draw a good background. 

One thing that you must keep in mind is that you should make the background of your drawing simple but make it colorful as well.

Because if you draw simple backgrounds, the image that you have drawn will become the focus of your drawing.

Hence, drawing backgrounds that are simple helps to foreground your characters.

It does not mean that you should pay less attention to the backgrounds.

In fact, it should compel you into thinking about how to start drawing backgrounds for your characters.

When you’re drawing simple backgrounds, you’ll want to learn some tips on how to draw one point perspective or two point perspective.

Why drawing backgrounds is important

Let’s get into our tips for drawing backgrounds. Drawing a background doesn’t have to be complicated, but there are some important details to keep in mind for drawing background tips.

Remember, backgrounds are very important in drawings.

Background drawing is the foundation to giving weight and grounding your characters. It’s not just a secondary aspect and thus it’s important to learn how to draw good backgrounds for them.

They are an essential part of the compositions.

And they have a major role to make or break your piece of art.

That’s why it’s crucial to learn how to get better at drawing backgrounds.

Even if you, as an artist, have left the space empty or white in the background, it means that you are still creating the background – a white background.

So, whatever the background of a drawing is, it has a huge impact on the final artwork – whether the impact is good or bad!

That’s why we’re looking at how to draw backgrounds for beginners. We’ll go through a selection of drawing background tips, which should help provide a foundation for how to draw a background.

Once you have learned to draw objects, people, or characters in dynamic poses, it is time to begin drawing backgrounds.

The starting point of how to draw better backgrounds is color.

It is important to use those colors in the background that match the main image.

If you have created all positive shapes in an image, then the negative shapes will represent the background.

This post highlights everything that you need to know about drawing backgrounds.

Remember, drawing a background doesn’t need to be hard work. It’s easy to draw backgrounds if you keep them simple and harmonious.

Here, you will come to know some basic and advanced tips by which you can draw backgrounds of your drawings and paintings like a pro.

We will show you how you can draw some basic shapes as well as lines.

This will help with figuring out what to put in the background of a drawing.

By reading this post till the end, you will also get to know adding patterns in the backgrounds to add a visual appeal to your drawing.

Are you ready to discover some tips for backgrounds? Let’s take a start now!

Never use a plain paper background for complex compositions

Want another tip for drawing backgrounds?

If you want to know how to draw good backgrounds, follow this advice.

Never use a plain paper background for complex compositions. It’s 101 for how to draw backgrounds because it just never works out.

A plain paper background means that you have not drawn a background because the color of the paper serves as a background.

This type of background is easy because you just need to select the right color of paper that you may use as a background.

We’ll review how to draw detailed backgrounds in later tips for drawing backgrounds.

BUT a plain paper background does not work well for complex compositions.

If the subject is complex, a plain paper background will make the subject dull and boring instead of making it interesting to look at.

When you are working with a complex character, you’ll have to learn specifically how to draw backgrounds for characters. 

That being said, a plain paper background can work well if you are working on a still-life painting or drawing a simple portrait.

That’s why it’s important to improve your skills and learn how to draw detailed backgrounds in addition to your subjects for complex compositions.

What you have learned: For simple portraits and still life paintings, using a plain paper background is good but for complex art compositions, never use a plain background.

Next, we’ll be looking at general tips on drawing backgrounds.

Crucial Tips for Drawing Backgrounds

Now, let’s get into the details of how to draw backgrounds. Read on for background drawing tips and how to avoid a crucial mistake.

Use light colors in the background so it can complement with the main elements

Let’s start with an easy tip for drawing backgrounds for beginners. 

The first and foremost tip that may help you in drawing the background of your artwork is using light colors.

When plain backgrounds are not used, obviously some colors are added in the background to make them look appealing.

Such colors should be added in the background that can complement the main object of the drawing rather than competing with it.

One of the best tips on drawing backgrounds I can provide is to make sure there’s a contrast between the subject and the background drawing.

Let’s say you are drawing a landscape where there are brown rocks in the front and at the back, there are large mountains.

The upper portion of the painting is filled with sky.

As the rocks in the front are the focal points and are dark brown in shade, for coloring the background (including mountains and sky), you need to add colors mixed with white.

This is the crucial part of how to draw backgrounds for beginners, as the lightness of the background allows it to recede into the background.

For example, for the sky, you can add light blue color and for mountains, you can add the same brown shade that was used for the foreground rocks but this time, the color is mixed with white to add a light effect to the background.

What you have learned: Never add such colors in the background that competes with the focal point for the attention of the viewer!

If you want to know how to get better at drawing backgrounds, this is one of the most crucial tips.

Avoid long straight or curved lines when drawing backgrounds

In the left image, notice the long lines that recede into the background. Other than looking at railroad tracks, this doesn’t really occur in real life. In the right image, you’ll see cars, people, trash, and other things to break up the long lines. When you break up the lines, it makes it look more natural.

The next important tip is to avoid long straight and curved lines. This is one of the best tips for how to draw better backgrounds.

Now you must be thinking lines are everywhere in the drawings then how you can avoid them.

Let me tell you.

You can definitely use long straight and curved lines but there should be some object that breaks into them.

When considering what to put in the background of a drawing, an unbroken line can cause trouble.

In other words, I can say that they should be disconnected.

Why?

Because if there are long lines in the background, the whole artwork may become boring or inartistic.

Obviously, that’s something you want to avoid when learning how to draw better backgrounds.

Consider this by taking an example of arranging a room.

To set up a room, you will put various pieces of furniture, wall hangings, or carpets just to fill up the blank space and long lines.

The same is the case with drawing the backgrounds. When learning how to get better at drawing backgrounds, you want interest, not stagnancy.

If there is monotony in the background using long straight and curved lines, you should break it otherwise the viewer will not be attracted to the whole artwork.

You’ll want to consider how to integrate different background drawing ideas in order to bring interest. 

Therefore, to make your backgrounds interesting, you should avoid using long lines.

Hopefully that helps provide some background drawing tips.

What you have learned: For making the background of your paintings appealing, interesting, and not disturbing to the eye, never draw long lines, either straight or curved.

The lines must be broken by some objects. Now, onto more tips on drawing backgrounds.

 

Parallel lines in the background should not conflict with one another

In the left image, it shows a sofa that is next to the curtains. This creates parallel lines between the edge of the sofa and the edge of the curtain. In the right image, the parallel lines are avoided by moving the sofa in front of the curtains.

For designing the background of a drawing, another technique is parallel lines.

When considering how to start drawing backgrounds, parallel lines play a special role in perspective.

To make a background add a positive vibe to the subject, you can draw parallel lines in the background but they should not conflict with one another.

Let’s take an example of a background of a room.

In such a drawing, you need to show the interior of the room such as a sofa, flower vase, clock, wall hanging, or table.

If you want to know how to draw detailed backgrounds, you’ll have to gain some knowledge of drawing common objects like these.

If you group the furniture or other interior items of the room in such a way that the lines are becoming parallel, what will it show?

Can we call it a good composition?

Absolutely not!

The parallel lines are conflicting with one another.

They should be broken by other objects.

This is not a good way to learn how to draw backgrounds for beginners.

For example, if you have drawn a curtain then its parallel line should not match with that of the sofa (placed just beside the curtain).

Learning tips on drawing backgrounds can help only so much, a part of background drawing is always going to be learning to draw the landscapes, scenes, and objects themselves.

What you have learned: If the background of your artwork contains many parallel lines, make sure that they are not conflicting with each other.

Always try to make them with some objects! It’s simply part of how to draw a good background.

Draw a background that unifies the whole artwork

Ready for more background drawing ideas?

Any good selection of drawing background tips will help to unify it with the foreground and subjects.

It is another technique that an artist must follow if he/she is drawing backgrounds.

Plus, learning how to create harmony is a solid way of how to practice drawing backgrounds.

You should draw a background that unifies the whole image.

This tip for drawing the backgrounds is typically related to the colors.

It means that the colors of the background should be such that they can complement the colors of the main object.

When learning how to draw backgrounds for characters, this is essential.

For example, consider a drawing in which there is a bird sitting on the branch of a tree.

Now the question arises here is what will be the background?

Will it be a plain background or should an artist use light colors?

These are the questions to ask yourself when drawing backgrounds for beginners.

It totally depends on the colors that are used in the bird and the branch of a tree.

If the bird has yellow and black colors and the flowers on a tree branch have pink colors, then you can use yellow and pink colors in the background.

When learning how to draw a background, you know that we’re going to have to integrate these further by lightening them.

But instead of making them too bright, try to make colors diffused so that the viewer can focus on the actual subject of the image and that is a bird.

What you have learned: An artist can use different colors in the background. But such colors should be used that can unify the whole piece of art.

Let’s move onto the next one of our background drawing tips.

If you have used a plain background but want to soften its hardness at the same time, you can use a tinted background.

Tinted backgrounds are one of the easiest methods of how to practice drawing backgrounds. Drawing background ideas doesn’t have to be complicated.

Basically, a tinted background is also a plain background but you can add some shades of colors or pencils in the selected areas, maybe in the corner of the painting or at the edges of the main subject.

The tinted background helps a lot in making the subject focus the attention of the viewer.

Thus, learning to use a tinted background is helpful for drawing a background.

But one thing that should be kept in mind is that such colors should be used for a tinted background that matches the colors used in the subject.

Hence, learning how to draw a good background involves connecting these two.

What you have learned: If you do not want to use a plain background but make the background simple as well, you can use a tinted background by shading in some areas of the background.

Use elements in the background to create depth

In the left image, you see a view of mountains in the background but the foreground is pretty flat. In the right image, the image has more depth by adding small hills and a lake.

The next tip for drawing backgrounds is to use some elements in the background that can create depth.

Depth is a crucial concept when drawing backgrounds for beginners.

Imagine you have created a landscape drawing.

The whole scene is beautiful, and the light is perfect but there is something that is making your artwork look flat or compressed.

It is due to the background! You’ll also want to learn how to draw backgrounds for characters, thinking about how character and background interplay.

Use some elements in the background that makes an artwork interesting.

For example, if there are mountains in a landscape painting, you can add a lake.

Interest can come from a wide variety of aspects you can find through other drawing background tips. This will definitely give depth to your photos.

What you have learned: Always try to use some elements in the background that can create depth and can make the artwork appealing to the eyes.

Draw a background that can add to the quality of the scene | a tonal background

Looking for more background drawing ideas? Always draw an appealing background to add to the quality of the whole scene.

If you’re wondering what to put in the background of a drawing, this should be the first thought.

For example, in the case of a landscape painting, you can draw different trees in the background that may enhance the whole picture.

You can also create an illusion of a blurry landscape. It can also enhance your painting.

This is one of the methods for how to draw good backgrounds. Blurry landscapes as a way to draw backgrounds help to hone the focus on the subject.

What you have learned: An artist must always use a background that can to the quality of the scene.

Add shadows and highlights

One last tip for how to start drawing backgrounds involves the use of light and color.

If you are drawing backgrounds for anime films, you should use colorful backgrounds.

Plus, it is better to add shadows and highlights in the backgrounds using different techniques so that an illusion of depth can be created.

Shadows and highlights are a key part of how to draw a background.

What you have learned: Adding shadows and highlights in the background is a good technique for creating an illusion of depth.

Use different shades of colors in the background

Among background drawing ideas, colors are one of the most essential.

Most artists prefer to use white paper for their drawings but they want a colored background at the same time.

In such a case, using different shades of colors in the background is an ideal option.

You can use this as a method how to practice drawing backgrounds.

It is a great technique by which you can draw backgrounds like a pro.

Especially if you’re learning how to draw backgrounds for characters, shades can help a lot.

What you have learned: Instead of adding different colors, you can add different shades of the same color in the background.

Conclusion

So, these are the top ten tips for drawing backgrounds.

It is also important to make the backgrounds as simple as you can so that the viewer can focus on the main object that you have drawn in your painting.

The colors used in the image must also correspond with that of the background.

So, if you want to draw backgrounds like a pro, follow all the above-mentioned tips, have fun and happy drawing.

Do you know any other technique for drawing the backgrounds in artworks?

Tell us in the comments section!

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