Myths and Mysteries of Art Materials

offered by Bob Williamson

 Black Paint and Dark Values

There are three predominant black paints in the art world, Carbon or Lamp black, Ivory or Bone Black and Mars Black or Black Iron Oxide.

They are each different pigments with slightly different properties.  Carbon was the first black use from ancient times.  It is basically soot from burning oils or gasses.  Many manufacturers no longer offer it.

Ivory black is from the charred scraps of ivory.  Bone black is from the charred animal bones.  These blacks are only about 30 percent carbon.  The rest is calcium phosphate.  Ivory is a bit superior to bone black and is the most popular black among artists.  It is lighter, smother and more transparent than carbon black.

Mars black is a 20^th century development.  It is made from magnetite ore or the oxidation of ferrous salts.  In other words – “rust.” It is best used in water mediums, but works in oils as well.  It has a slight brownish undertone.

Any black can be a useful convenience color when understood and used sparingly.  It will darken the value of any other color.  With yellows it tends to make dull greens which can be helpful in some landscape settings.  It is also useful when a very dark color is wanted and you can’t quite get it with the mix you’ve chosen to add a touch of black to darken it more.  Black should almost never be used alone as a color because it is dull and without life.  Besides virtually nothing in nature is pure black.  There is always some color, even in the deepest shadows.  Even black fabric, wood or metal will pick up some color from the surroundings.  Even if you don’t see it yourself, you painting will be improved with some color in the black.  The next time you hear an artist say, “never have black on your palette,” just smile and nod and think to yourself, “I know something about black that you don’t know.”

Without black on your palate, a very good way to darken a color is with its complement.  The problem here is that not all so called complements work as well as others.  This is because every color has a bias.  That is, for example, Cadmium Red Light, Permanent Red  and Napthol Red are all warm reds.  That is they lean toward yellow.  Alizarin Crimson, Quinacridone Violet and Magenta and Permanent Rose on the other hand are all cool reds.  That is they lean toward blue. 

If you mix a cool red with a cool green compliment like Phthalo Green you will get near black or any value of the red or green depending on the ratio of one color to the other.  Then by adding white for acrylic or oil paint or water for watercolor you can get nice grays.  But if you mix a warm red with a cool green, the dominant yellow bias in the warm red will reflect back  either brown or a dull grey depending on the amount of bias in each color.  Ultramarine Blue, a very warm blue, leaning toward red, mixed with Burnt Umber, a warm Orange, leaning toward yellow will make black with nice grey undertones either warm or cool depending on the ratio of the mix.  Ultramarine Blue mixed with Burnt Sienna a warmer brown/orange make excellent grays especially useful in darkening cloud formations.

Hopefully this will help some get off to a good start mixing and using darks, but like everything else in art, only practice and experimentation will make you good at it.  Play around with the favorite colors you use on your palette and find out what they can do.  The fewer colors you have the better.  All you really need to mix any color in the spectrum is a warm and cool red, a warm and cool yellow, a warm and cool blue and white if working with other than transparent watercolor.  A few convenience colors depending on the subjects you paint can be helpful also.  

The next session I’ll cover some of the convenience colors.  Green for example is one of the most difficult colors for artists to get right.  So I’ve titled the next session, “It Isn’t Easy Being Green.”

Happy color mixing,