Mixing recipe
How to mix black without black paint
Target
#333335
Recipe mixes to #353639
A chromatic black, the one painters mix when they keep black off the palette. Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber are complements, and five parts to one lands on a very dark neutral that reads as black on the canvas but has life in it. Two tubes from a common box.
The recipe
Step by step
Build the pile from the biggest, lightest component and work toward the strongest tinter. Check the pile against each swatch before moving on.
- Start with 5 parts Ultramarine Bluepile #363258
- Work in 1 part Burnt Umberpile #353639
Another route
Ultramarine with Alizarin Crimson, seven to five, is the other classic pair. It is a point further off and leans violet; use it for the black in a warm passage, or glaze it where the umber version would look brown.
What goes wrong
The recipe is a balance, and tipping it either way shows: too much umber and the black is brown, too much blue and it is navy. Mix a small amount first and smear it next to a piece of real black paint to see the cast. Both pigments are transparent, so the pile looks darker than a thin layer will; the engine's target here is a dark grey because no mix gets darker than the pigments in it.
Related colors
Results vary with brand, lighting and medium. Acrylic dries a touch darker than it looks wet. Treat this as a mixing aid, not a lab instrument: it tells you which tubes to reach for and roughly in what proportion. Fine-tune the last stretch by eye.