Mixing Black in Oil Paint
Katie LiddiardDescription
Many artists insist that they never use black straight from the tube. It might seem like an odd rule to follow, but artist Katie Liddiard explains why you might want to do the same, and how you can achieve deeper, richer darks by mixing them. Blacks that come straight out of the tube can be problematic, Katie says. To demonstrate, with a painted square of ivory black from the tube, Katie has created a gray scale beneath it by mixing with lead white. But the ivory black has already begun to chip away, because the paint film itself isn’t strong—this pigment is what’s called a “fatty” oil paint, with more oil added to the paint than other colors have. Lead white, on the other hand, has very little oil content, making it stronger, as well as adding strength to any mix of the two, but ivory black on its own is weak. This black can also sink into the primer, making your value judgments more challenging as you paint.
Next, Katie turns to a better alternative—a mixed black, composed of alizarin, ultramarine blue, and Van Dyke brown. With a solid painted square of this mixture, the value depth is about the same as the black from the tube, but it’s not chipping and creates a stronger paint film. When painted out with white, the Van Dyke brown adds warmth, and the alizarin creates a slight purple cast in the gray scale.
As you develop skills in color mixing, try experimenting with the rich dark tones of mixed blacks instead of black from the tube!
Have you heard artists say, "I've taken black completely off my palette," and wondered why? I'm here to show you why. I'm Katie Liddiard and I wanna tell you why black tends to be a problematic color if you use it straight outta the tube, and why it's probably healthier to just mix your own blacks. So I have this little demo here. I have this square that is just straight ivory black outta the tube.
And then I've mixed it with a white, with lead white, for this gray scale here. You can see that it's already starting to chip off. This is the problem with ivory black, is the paint film itself is not very strong. Ivory black tends to be what's called a fatty oil paint which means that there's more oil in the paint to make it actually paint, than a lot of the other colors. Where lead white has a very, very little oil content.
So it's a stronger paint to paint on and with. So if you do mix it with lead white it will tend to be stronger, but if you're just mixing it, or if you're just using it on your own, it will be a bit of a weak paint film. And I'll show you that it will sink in pretty rapidly as well. So your value judgments will be affected by that. So you can see that it's pretty matte right now, but look how much is missing once I bring that oil back to it.
What's happening is the oil is getting sucked into the ground here of the primer. And it makes it very hard to judge, in my painting overall, if I'm missing that much value in my black because of that sinking in. So you can see the difference there as well. Now if we mix our black, I have a mixture of alizarine, ultramarine, and Van Dyke brown there, that, yeah, it sunk in some, but it's not going to be as problematic of a color. And you can see just how similar they are in terms of value, depth that I'm getting.
But the thing with this is that it's going to be a lot stronger of a paint film. It's not going to chip away. It's not going to kind of deteriorate nearly as terribly as the black outta the tube. And you can see this little chip right here just from me transporting this demo to this spot. So very problematic obviously.
And then I'll oil out this and you can see kinda the difference there as well. This is my Van Dyke brown thread that I mixed up here. And you can see the difference of the warmth of the Van Dyke versus a bit of the coolness of the ivory black. And then the purplely tones that I get with the alizarine, ultramarine, and the Van Dyke, which, of course, alizarine and ultramarine are purple. Then I add the Van Dyke, which is more of a neutral, so that it will kind of bring a more dull gray to that purple.
But on the whole, it's still a very dark, strong paint film. So that's why I've taken ivory black off of my palette. And I encourage people to do the same if they're not really familiar with the pigment.
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