I have for some time omitted black
from my palette and have depended on mixing blacks and grays using complements
or near complements. My favorite combinations to date have been 1) ultramarine
blue and burnt sienna and 2) (when I have green on my palette) Thalo green and
alizarin crimson. I have so far not found a combination on the yellow-purple
complement that I care for as "black" (although I've gotten some good muddy colors), but I assume that I just haven’t found the correct
combination. Yellow is so light a value that any combination with purple that
gets close to neutral tends to be too light for a rich black. This could
probably be remedied by selecting one of the dark yellow neutrals such as raw
sienna or yellow ochre rather than high-hue yellow.
By the way, a student asked me the
other day if I was familiar with “Payne’s Grey” so — curious as to what its
mineral components were — I looked it up. It turns out that (according to Wikipedia) Payne’s Grey is
simply a mixture of burnt sienna and ultramarine blue. So now you don’t need to
go out and buy Payne’s grey.
But I wrote a poem with a Payne’s
grey sky in it some time ago, and I include it here:
It’s a Payne’s grey watercolor sky,
blotted clouds grumbling in anticipation.
Somewhere it’s started to rain.
I will weep, weep with the rain
which hurricanes my heart’s ache
descending in typhoons.
Strong trees may break
before this is over.
It is a long slow rain,
flooding the path to the house.
In a distant land, men are fighting.
I will weep with the rain
for their lost lives.
Exercise: If you have old tubes of paint lying around or you
don’t mind the expense of trying new colors, here are some possible colors to
try mixing for blacks and greys. A familiarity with and ability to mix various blacks
and grays will give your paintings more richness.
1)
alizarin crimson and thalo green. (Also try any
magenta or cool red with assortment of greens.)
2)
cadmium orange and cobalt blue. (Also try other orange and blue combinations. Try also
blues with warm browns – which are actually dull oranges.)
3) Indian
yellow and dioxazine purple. (Also try raw sienna and other yellow-browns with
purples.)
