Creating Blurrrrry Backgrounds

Personally, I love a blurry background. I think they add depth and interest and make a picture look so much more finished and considered. But they take a lot of time, sometimes longer than the actual subject! And a lot of layering and blending to get the best effect.

The blurred effect is created by overlapping shapes of different colours, but not just overlapping shapes, they need to be blended into each other on all sides with no hard edges or sudden colour-changes. Your in-focus areas have to be pin-sharp with really well defined edges where they meet the background. This contrast of soft and hard lines also helps to push the background back, and the foreground forward.

The overlapping blends need to be bigger than you think. Blurring just a little of an edge isn’t going to be enough to really make it fuzzy. Think, half again to what you have! At least 1cm overlap.

Example of blurry background being made Luminance on Lightfast paper

Start the background by mapping in the darker shapes to about 50% of the saturation needed. Put those in with soft edges that are ready to blend into adjacent colours. And make sure those edges fade off into nothing.

Then add the surrounding colours in the same way. I find it easiest to put the dark area in, and then fully surround it with all the colour shapes I can see in my reference. Don’t go in with too much pressure yet, not until you’ve got the colour shapes the right size, the colour itself right, and you can see them starting to merge and blend nicely across the overlaps.

A kneadable eraser can be useful in these early stages to take off some of the pigment if you’ve gone too hard or added too much of one colour.

With your lightest areas, follow the same process, making sure your fuzzy overlap goes wide on these shapes too. Blend with lots of light pressure layers. Be careful not to lose your highlights.

If using greens for a wooded or leafy background, I recommend choosing a variety of greens, including grey-greens and blue-greens. Oranges and browns are superb colours to blend in with the greens to ‘naturalise’ some of those out of the box vibrant ones that are too intense for a background. And if you want to make it all a little hazy too, add in some pale blues or cool greys to desaturate the effect and further push the background away from the main subject.

Mostly dark backgrounds, map in your lights instead. Lightfast on hot-pressed paper

As you work up through the layers, blending those overlaps seamlessly together across the whole background, increase your pressure to fill the tooth of the page to the same level as you do your main subject. Make sure to check your fuzzy outlines are wide and blurry enough to create the out of focus look you want.

In short, no hard edges and large overlaps that blend seamlessly into each other.

Main elements are well lit in sharp focus. Depth created with differing levels of blur and light. Lightfast pencils on drafting film.

TIP - When taking reference photos with your mobile phone, check what camera modes you have available. The portrait mode often has an automatic blur effect for backgrounds, which is so helpful.

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