Last week I talked about how when I went to art school they discouraged you from using white with transparent watercolors. This week I want to talk to you about how most art schools teach their watercolor students to make their blacks by mixing colored pigments to get a black.
I'm here this week to tell you that you can just use black and I will tell you how you can make that black colorful.
For years I was mixing my Black watercolor together with Alizarin Crimson, Prussian Blue and any color in my palette that was really dark and I would try to make it either a warm or cool black. This process was always so difficult.
Then one year I was in Rockland Maine at the Wyeth Museum and I walked into the place to see a giant painting of blueberries done by Andrew Wyeth and the whole painting was done in Blues and Black. And his black you could tell was just solid black paint. Since then I had decided to buy a tube of black and I haven't mixed my black since.
If I want a colorful black I simply add it to the already mixed black, bingo it is a colorful Black and is so easy to do.
This weeks paint-a-long I will be using a lot of black paint.
David
