My Sketch of the Travelling Tailor
All too often I sketch people but end up leaving the background blank, because I don’t want to end up with a busy sketch with lots of background objects and elements, but I’ve been forgetting about the idea of adding colourful background to help liven up the sketch.
Last year I wrote a post about how watercolour backgrounds can help convey your sketch’s story, and I experimented with adding some vibrant coloured background to my people sketches, but I’d forgotten all about it, until I came across an artist called Mette Lehmann on Instagram. Her art includes quirky people sketches with brightly coloured dynamic backgrounds, and it reminded me that I need to do more backgrounds like this.
A plain white background behind a sketch of a person can look unfinished, but also boring and uninteresting. But add a splash of colour to complement the sketch, and all of a sudden it’s elevated from a quick loose sketch, to a piece of artwork.
Here’s some of Mette Lehmann’s people sketches from Instagram with colourful backgrounds.
Portrait Sketch with Dynamic Background
I’m a sucker for opera pink and lime green so of course this sketch (it looks like a Mette self-portrait) caught my attention straight away. It’s a quirky loose sketch with, and the playful background compliments the sketch beautifully. If you scan through the rest of the images in this post, you’ll see Mette is using Felix Scheinberger’s curated brightly coloured palette of colours.
I don’t have that turquoise used in the background, in my palette, but I’m sure I can mix it from the colours I have. I want to know how to mix it because it compliments the opera pink and lime green so well.
Mixing That Turquoise
I mixed Phthalo Blue Green Shade and a bit of Hansa Yellow Light to create a close approximation of that dark turquoise in the background of Mette’s Instagram post. If you add too much HYL it turns to green, so you only need a little bit of it.
I did four different experiments to mix loose backgrounds using this mixed Turquoise as a primary colour:
- Watery Cobalt Turquoise Light and a juicy layer of the mixed Turquoise on top
- Watery mixed Turquoise base layer and a more juicy wash added on top
- Watery Cobalt Turquoise Light and a juicy layer of the mixed Turquoise on top, with lime green added (CTL and HYL)
- Mixed the HYL and PBgs on the paper instead of in the palette. The PBgs is very intense and invasive and dominates the yellow.
I have been coveting Felix’s Spring Green – it’s in my Amazon basket, but I’ve been holding off on ordering it. Instead I mixed my own version of lime green from some Daniel Smith paints, and have been using that a lot, but the trouble is I can’t remember which yellow or blue I used to mix it!
Group Sketch with Dynamic Background
This is a fantastic group sketch with a great use of perspective, with the level of detail diminishing at the further back we look. This background is a riot of pink and orange and complements the energy of the people at the table.
The favourite orange I mix in my palette is from opera pink and Hansa yellow light, so I experimented with an urban sketch I did at the Sol de Inverno event, where I left the background white and the sketch looked boring and unfinished.
My sketch without a background
My sketch with a background
Suddenly this is a much more interesting sketch. I actually think it would have looked better with a turquoise background – a bit of a nod to the sky, and to tie into the blue material he was sewing. But this coloured background is a much better option than a plain white background.
Sketch of Couple under the Sun Umbrella
This is an interesting background because it’s a busy mix of colours that complement the bright purple from the guy’s shirt, but the background colours are paler so they don’t overwhelm the foreground sketch.
These Instagram posts have motivated me to experiment more with loose multi-layered backgrounds. Part of the challenge with these kind of dynamic backgrounds is that they’re difficult to replicate. When you’re using a lot of water to move the paint around, it’s nigh-near impossible to control the results. But at least if I know what I’m trying to create, I may be able to achieve a modicum of success.
