Black

I know we've all been here before - that all artists are different - that Renoir called black "the Queen of colours" - and that there isn't a right answer. All the same, the subject fascinates me, and has for decades.  Indulge me one more time! I almost never, and preferably absolutely never, use black in any painting medium I've yet tried, be that watercolour, gouache, acrylic, or oil.  That of course means tubed black, like Ivory, Lamp, or Mars.  In every medium, I've found it kills my paintings - it sucks life and colour out of them.  I'm not much fonder of Payne's Grey, either - though perhaps it has a place in watercolour.  Now and then.  Rarely.  (Rowland Hilder, a great watercolourist, used it and Neutral Tint, and even claimed he couldn't paint without them.)   I have wondered - it would be wonderful if anyone out there knew - if Renoir's black came out of a tube, or was mixed.  I should also make it clear that I'm referring to landscape, seascape, and portraiture - I've seen pure black used very effectively in abstract paintings, and am sure the great Mondrian would have used tube black.  So did .... name flittered from my brain: Malevich?  I think it was Malevich.  Even though his black square painting has cracked very severely over 100 years. If you wanted to convert me to black (because you use it successfully, not because you want to ruin my paintings!   I can do THAT myself...), how would you set about it?  Do you use black in painting media - and if you do, do you use it in all of them, or just in some, which you believe it suits?   I leave pastel out of this because on the rare occasions I employ it, I do use black and can't see much alternative: though - I'm not a good pastellist: I only use it for sketches and colour notes.  And of course, I use black ink, conté, charcoal, carbon, line and wash - but it's its use in coloured work that interests me.  On the occasions I've taught or mentored others, I've counselled against its use: while making it clear it's their choice, not mine. But - to cut a long post short: what do YOU think? 

This would be in watercolour, Dixie D?  If so, have you a favourite black?

Trips to the bathroom are always enlightened in my case by a strong torch - you really don't want to fall over in mid-stream.  However, leaving that aside (thank you Sylvia for introducing that note of vulgarity, tee hee....) I hope for more from this:  I don't use blue-black (it may be that I should), and have never yet used or seen the need to use tube black in oil, or acrylic.   I have seen a ... need; or possible use? ... in watercolour.  And yet have very rarely used it there either.   I'm interested however in the use of tube black; I just do not like it - moreover, I see no place for it.  Now - others must surely be happier with it than I am?  Where are they? And  Sylvia - I did entirely understand your post, fear not: and as always, your point is valid.  I love to mix my blacks, as I think you do - we both know how to do it, though: some don't, and will have recourse to the tube - which I'm sure we both think ill-advised.

Wanting a real, live, black?  Viridian plus Burnt Sienna; Pthalo Green plus Napthol Crimson; French Ultramarine plus Burnt Sienna; any mix of the three primaries, just mix the three primaries (those tending to the darker side) together for a lovely range of blacks and, when lightened with white, greys.  

Excellent - trying to remember what my standard 'black' mix was; I use quite a few now.  It may well have been based on Viridian - probably with the Alizarin, though I don't carry the latter now. Small discovery for Alan: Blue-black is also available in the Daler-Rowney Artists' oil range, i.e. their top range.  I don't know how it compares with the W&N version, though.  Maybe I'll give it a try, in the fullness of time - I have a dream of acquiring every colour sold and playing with them: but a) I don't think I'm going to live long enough to try the lot, and b) that's a lot of money one's dreaming about there....