Starting a painting with a toned background - January 12,2015

Toning the surface of paper, canvas, board, masonite is a very important part of the process of painting.  Not all artists like to paint on a white surface. It is done mixing paint with water for water soluble paint or turpentine for oil based , applying it with a cloth or brush. This way you can add a background color that not only gives a starting common color that helps unify the work, especially by leaving small patches of the background throughout the picture thus preventing other colors from becoming too dominant.  The most common toned background colors are earth tones. This practice also eliminates those distracting little white dots showing through the paint. These dots are particularly annoying in darker areas of your painting. Additionally, artists that paint on white background, have the tendency to paint in light values. The simple reason for that is color interaction.