Working with Black and White

Both at complete opposite ends of the colour spectrum. I seldom use either directly to any painting; oil, watercolour and even monochome. There are the odd exceptions when I need to produce a bright highlight and when mising into other colours, but otherwise rarely. Balck even more so.

Where oils are concerned, Burnt Umber or Paynes Grey works brilliantly. Since neither are so dense as Lamp Black, they keep the tones and values more evenly distributed. Lamp black is very dominant and seems to create a 'hole'. And paintings which have been produced using black to represent a something in deep shadow or even something which is actually black in reality, throws the painting out of balance as sub consiously the artist tries to level out the tones. Which means that tones which were mildly dark must now be brought up (or down) to graduate to black which is the reference value for dark areas.

Whites, though less so to blacks, is similar. Grey hair, for instance should not be painted using white. Buff White is much better and softer than stark white. Against a darker background, Buff White will appear more than bright enough to suggest greying or grey hair.

With watercolours the situation is very much a different playing field. We simply don'y use white at all. Whilst white as a watercolour is available, it doesn't work at all well. The best we can do with it is to mix it with other colours to produce a lighter version of that colour which will contrast well against a darker colour underneath it. It's actually much better to use pastels or white charoal to enhance bright areas if you need to because you've over done the layers previously. That works well with watercolours I think and adds some nice interesting textures when used with a rough surface watercolour paper.