"Add a Scenic Background to Your Next Portrait"

I have painted many portraits, but very few of them incorporated a detailed background. I didn’t want to make the extra effort (or spend the additional time required) when it was more fun for me to focus on the subject’s features.

But lately my portraits had acquired a “sameness” to them. I seemed to always be painting head and shoulder pictures with a fuzzy, nondescript background. What could I do to make them more interesting and appealing? An obvious answer was to change the background. Another method would be to change the scale of the figure in the painting by working larger or showing more of the figure in the portrait.

Not having a place to store larger paintings, I decided to reduce the scale of the figure and work on a 20” x 16” canvas for my next project.

I approached this painting as an experiment. If I could successfully incorporate a scenic background into my test painting, perhaps I could offer some of my clients this option as well. My reference photo files are filled with interesting photos of faces. Some I have taken myself; others I’ve cut out of magazines. I came to an image of an old man wearing a fur hat, and immediately pictured him sitting on a bench with a heavy coat as the snow melted around him. There was plenty of melted snow lying on the ground outside my studio windows so I would have a handy reference.

I sketched several versions of the old man sitting on a bench, varying the angle of the bench, the angle of his head, the background, etc., until I arrived at one I was happy with. I used the view from my studio as a basis for the background, although you could just as easily use a photo. Then I roughly sketched the composition freehand onto the canvas with a mixture of burnt sienna and ultramarine blue, using a No. 8 flat bristle brush. I decided to limit my palette to six colors plus titanium white: Burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue. (Note: Before I was too far into this painting, I realized the burnt sienna was making my mixtures muddy, so I removed it.)

I kept the initial colors of the painting on the cool side, planning to use warmer yellows and greens for the sunlit areas of the landscape. Then I added a man and a dog for scale and to add depth. I imagined the old man was sitting in a park. The path played an important part in the composition, so I was careful to have it lead toward his head, which I wanted to be the focal point.
Unfortunately, the snow melted by the time I had another opportunity to work on this painting and I had to change my plans for the snowy groundcover.

I mixed greens with cadmium yellow and ultramarine blue, using a simple formula that involved adding more blue to the areas in the distance. I painted in the grass, trees and path and used the same mixtures when painting his face to make sure it integrated well with the background. Here is where using a limited palette paid off.

My goal was to bring the background to a fairly finished state before working more on the figure.
Then I had to make a decision about what color to make the bench and the man’s coat. Realizing that every color in a painting is affected by the colors surrounding it, I finally chose a dull orangish tone for the coat because I thought his face seemed a bit ruddy and the orange would make the reds in the face cooler by contrast. I switched to a no. 4 filbert bristle brush and mixed a dull orange using cadmium yellow, a bit of cadmium red and some yellow ochre. I used ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson for the areas in shadow. Then I brought his face and the hat to a more final state of completion, using thick paint and not really defining any details.
The bench was painted in, keeping the brighter colors for the planes facing the sky and adding blue to the side in shadow.

I went back in to the trees and the background with some darks, redefining the branches, then painting in a lighter tone for the part of his coat facing the sun. I thought I might be close to finishing it (except I needed to paint his pants yet.) So I took a picture and brought it into the image editor. When I looked at the photo in grayscale, I immediately saw the tones were too close in the foreground and the painting needed more contrast. The piece of wood he was carving had become an unrecognizable blob, and although it wasn’t meant to be a focal point of the painting, I decided to change it.
I lightened the bench and the coat in the light and adjusted the values on the path, and on his hat. The path seemed wrong now, so I went over the front area with a wash of yellow ochre and alizarin crimson and painted in some rocks with a mixture of yellow ochre and white. After this had dried I glazed yellow ochre over the entire front area of the path to warm it and match his coat better.

I glazed some shadows onto the bench and painted in a darker piece of wood to suggest a carving of a dog. (Working with a black lab in the studio seems to have affected the makeup of my painting… and the more she begs for attention the less I seem to get done.) Subconsciously I brought her into the painting with me, I suppose.

Then I moved the path inward toward his leg to soften the diagonals and added some blue to the tree behind him. I took another picture and grayscaled it with the following result.
Much better than before. But now the path seems too light and as it lies in the center of the painting it is shouting for too much attention. I glazed some yellow ochre and ultramarine blue over it and added a glaze of yellow ochre to the grass to simplify the shapes there.
The left image shows the path after applying the glaze.

I’m not a landscape painter. In fact, I seldom paint landscapes because I think they’re beyond my scope and vision.

However, I think if you’re motivated to place your subjects in a more interesting place you can easily do it by working up a good composition and concentrating on maintaining your focal point. Although I have shied away from scenic backgrounds in the past, I’ll be more open to their possibilities in the future. What I like about this painting is it tells a story. The carving in his hand echoes the dog in the background and he seems to be thinking about the man and dog that have just passed by him.
This is a close-up of the finished painting.
I hope this article motivates you to try a more elaborate background in your next portrait.