Backgrounds are my bane of existence. I hate drawing backgrounds. Balancing the details and proportions of a background, the size of a character, he shadows on both the background and the character, having the character match the background. It's all a lot of work, and not always successful. Which is why I've been practicing backgrounds in simplicity.
I've been breaking down the backgrounds into simple erratic lines and rectangular shapes so that a simple figure can blend into the space and interact with it. Breaking down a complex idea like a whole background with characters into a simple series of lines makes the process lower stakes.
This process has allowed me to practice backgrounds without messing up and getting frustrated. Low stakes background creation has allowed for a better understanding of three dimensional spaces.