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Backgrounds

- by Alison Simpson -

The backgrounds of paintings are so important. I started to think about this when I thought I might write an article on flowers. However the article has developed in my mind and has ended up more about backgrounds.

Let's start with Criss Canning. Many of you will have seen her exhibition recently at Mornington and there are many reasons why we liked her paintings. But I think her use of backgrounds is one of the most interesting aspects. I bought six greeting cards, and I don't think they will be used as such (so don't feign illness in the hope you'll get one!). All my choices were of Australian native flowers in vases - and they all have bold geometric designs as backgrounds - except they are not backgrounds, they are an integral part of the design. She has used the same bold pattern and vase in more than one painting.

Now for something completely different...but still flowers. Some of our own members are masters of the use of backgrounds. I'm thinking of Gwen Batiste and her flower paintings. I have one of her paintings - it is of hydrangeas - and I consider that it is the only successful painting of hydrangeas I have ever seen. Its success is largely due to the background, and foreground for that matter - because as with Criss Canning, the background and foreground tend to be on one picture plane.

There are no really dark darks and no really light lights, Gwen relies on the subtlety of her colours to achieve her wonderful effect. The flowers, vase and lemon are in much the same key as the background, and I wish we had colour pix in the WASP so you could see the colours for yourselves. Blues, mauves, greens in the flowers, yellows in the lemon, and mauves, oranges and greens in the background and foreground. Lovely.

I usually do flower paintings very differently from Gwen; they often have a very dark background and this shows up the flowers well. Pam Bier's "Jan's Roses" (one of my favourites), has a dark background with red/orange splashes to repeat the colour of the roses (See front page of October WASP). One of mine, which has an interesting background and reflection is "Crepuscule".

Related to backgrounds is the colour of the support. Janet Lee has used the new Colourfix pastel paper colour Raw Sienna for two pastels lately. In both cases she has left the sky area unpainted, i.e. it is still raw sienna. Both paintings look wonderful, and both paintings have won 1st at the In House Competition at WAS meetings. There are also areas of raw sienna showing throughout the painting. Use the paper colour, or in the case of oils, the underpainting to your advantage, don't cover them all up!

Backgrounds are very important at life class. Carol spends as much time talking about backgrounds as she does the subject itself! Using light against dark areas, dark against light areas, choosing wonderful colours and using them in the background and the subject are all things we think about at life class.

Anyway, we have seen that there are no rules (whenever did true art have rules) to backgrounds, so it is up to you to achieve that marvellous effect.

To quote our patron, Carol Boothman, "Do whatever you like as long as it's wonderful!"