Does the background recede far enough?

[Karin Wells]

Basically the cool color of blue recedes objects. And the warm color of yellow brings them forward. If you look at a landscape, the color yellow can only appear in the foreground. The yellow will be less intense in the middleground and disappear altogether in the distant background. (i.e., you can see bright green grass at your feet, but it appears blue in the distance).

You can recede your background in many different ways and here are some:

Glaze warmth into the foreground (raw umber, raw sienna, etc.) so that the background is cooler by comparison.

Or glaze cooler color (i.e., French ultramarine blue, etc.) into the background.

Scumbling a lighter color over an object in the background will make it appear cooler.

You can neutralize the bright colors in the background by glazing them with their color wheel opposite. (i.e., glaze orange with blue, glaze red with green, etc.) This will "grey" the colors down and make them appear to recede.