Deep black

[Michele Rushworth]

What do you use to get a deeper black than Ivory black straight out of the tube. Alizarin and Pthalo green? Some other combination?

[Allan Rahbek]

Michele, try Ivory Black over Alizarin.
You won

[Richard Budig]

There are several formulas for making blacks -- or VERY dark darks.

One I use a lot is burnt sienna, alizarin and ultramarine blue. By fiddling with it, you can produce warm, reddish darks that read as black, or cool, bluish darks that read as black. They will oscillate.

Replace transparent oxide red from Rembrandt and these mixes will be even more transparent.

Alizarin and viridian will give you dark darks, as will burnt umber and alilzarin, which can be cooled with blue (ultramarine or Prussian).

Prussian blue and Alizarin also produce some intense darks.

One other possibility -- lighten the values around your darks, which will make the dark seem darker.

One thing I've found is that when it gets so dark, the average viewer scans and reads the passage as black, no matter what dark color of combination it is.

[Tom Edgerton]

Michele--

A little viridian or alizarin or prussian blue in ivory black is good, also try mars black--it's a little bluer.

Also, try painting blacks with enough oil that they don't dry out dull and reflect--the deepest blacks will be very transparent and multi-layered. Oil out dull patches when they're dry to see what you have.

But Richard's onto it--look at the values around it. Black is black, and that's as far as you can go, so after that, you're playing with perception.

--TE

[Alexandra Tyng]

To get the depth you are looking for in blacks (or in any color), try looking beyond the formulas and ask yourself what is going on in terms of light and shadow. The light and shadow should be consistent throughout the painting. As forms "turn" into the shadow they pick up refracted light in the atmosphere that is slightly redder than the direct light.

What's all this have to do with black? First, identify the color of the light, because all other colors are generated from the light. Then, choose a cadmium color sightly redder than the light, and mix it with its compliment. For instance, you could mix cadmium orange with ultramarine blue or thalo blue. You could mix cadmium yellow deep with dioxazine purple or French ultramarine blue. If the light is very orangey you could mix cad red or ever alizarin with thalo green.The complementary colors should be strong, saturated colors. You may have to adjust the balance of the complementary colors to achieve a neutral. Then mix this mixture in with your black. I use ivory black, by the way. Your black will be shadowy and "deep." If you are consistent about treating all the shadows in the painting the same way, your painting will hold together. The actual darkness of the black will not matter because it will appear deep in that context.

I know this might seem a bit complicated. Hope it makes some sense.