Don’t Use Black Paint in Landscape Paintings
Pure black, it is not a color that is commonly found in nature.
The black looking colors that we see in nature hold a combination of all the color around.
The actual colors of an object which might look black is not the man made black as seen in paint.
It is easy to grab a tube of black if you are painting a black stump that has been in a bush fire.
Your painting will remain in the low standard of craftsmanship, if you do not mix the colors from your limited palette.
The man made black holds none of the real colors of the burnt stump.
The burnt stump is colored not only by the black looking charcoal, but with the reflected light from surrounding objects. And the atmosphere which might be influenced by the colors of an unseen sky.
The easy way to mix a color black for your paintings is to take the darkest blue from the palette and add some burnt sienna.
Mix dark blue and burnt sienna but that is not all there is to it.
To get the real color black for your painting you should mix a few colors. Mix burnt sienna into the dark blue and add a little of the colors that are also in your landscape.
Add a little of the the colors that might be reflecting onto the area where you need black.
The colors reflecting onto the black might be a brilliant patch of green grass or an orange rock.
You do not need to add a great amount of these odd colors and most important you must not mix the colors completely.
You can half mix the colors
Let the brush do the mixing when you apply the color to your work.
Then you have it, a black just like that black looking color that is made by nature.
You have mixed the darkest dark and if you look closely you will see streaks of every color, just like as in nature.
Those streaks of all the colors is the reflected lights and the atmosphere, or light shining from an unseen sky.
When using the black looking color in the distance, you might leave out some of the ‘reflected light colors’.
Add the colors of the day.
In the distance the colors fade and therefore you will need to add the colors of the atmosphere
If it’s a blue sky then you will add white and blue and if it’s a red sunset you will add white and red.
Never reach for that tube of black or grey, it just looks terrible and cheapens a painting.
Don’t try darkening a color by adding black paint out of a tube. It rarely works because it might be the only black paint in the painting. Even if it is mixed well into the other colors it will look like a mistake and will be seen at first glance by a trained eye.
Black paint can look like a hole in your canvas.
Black paint has no natural life in it.
Your work will stay in the amateur basket.
Mix your own black paint from the colors on the palette.
A mixed black paint can show life.
And looks natural.
A mixed black paint can have reflected lights through it.