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Black is a beautiful, rich color to use in your paintings, but can be a tricky color to work with. If not used properly, it can turn your realistic painting into a flat looking mess. I’ve worked with beginning artists, who easily become frustrated with this pigment and the difficulty in creating depth with it.
Whenever I use black paint, I mix it with at least one other color. Sometimes, I skip the black pigment that comes out of the tube all together and create a beautiful hue by mixing Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, and a little bit of Violet. To be more traditional, you can also mix equal amounts of red, yellow, and blue together. It is amazing what you can create with these and many other combinations. I encourage anyone reading this to experiment with different variations of colors together on your palette to see what you can create.
When painting a black animal or any other object from a photo, always take the time to study how many shades and hues you can see in the black. Is it a violet-red black? Is there orange, blue, or green black? Also consider if there is any white in the black, creating a dark grey. By combining various hues of black together your painting will be richer and full of depth. It also makes viewers of your artwork want to stare at it longer.
