Mixing recipe
How to mix charcoal grey
Target
#3A3A3A
Recipe mixes to #3A3B3C
Charcoal grey is Ivory Black straight from the tube. The pigment is not a true black; its masstone is a very dark, slightly blue grey, which is exactly what charcoal is. There is nothing to mix.
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 1 part Ivory Blackpile #3A3B3C
Another route
A single part of Burnt Umber in eleven of black warms the undertone and lands equally close. Use it when the charcoal has to sit against warm colors, or in a shadow area that would otherwise look too cold.
What goes wrong
The mistake is adding white to make it look more grey. Even a small amount lifts it well past charcoal into mid grey, because Ivory Black is a strong tinter but white is stronger. If you want it lighter, keep the white to a speck. Ivory Black is also slow to dry in oil, so give a thick passage time. Ivory Black (tinting strength 4, where a cadmium is 1) is the paint to be careful with here: it goes in last, a knife-tip at a time, and a little too much cannot be mixed back out.
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.