I, like many art students, was told to never use black paint. My painting professor in college endlessly encouraged me to use what is called an optical black. An example of an optical black would be to substitute a deep violet or a dark green or any other highly saturated but dark in value in order to give the illusion of black while creating a more dynamic color palette. If your painting calls for a deep black area, an art student might be taught to use a chromatic black, a very deep color made from two or more paint colors to essentially make your own black. It’s great advice, and I followed it then, and I often follow that advice even now, almost eight years after earning my BFA. I understand why that is the lesson that art students need to learn, and why artists should learn not to lean on black pigments for creating value in a painting.
But heres my problem: I LOVE THE COLOR BLACK. I also love a good, super neutral gray (another color that is not encouraged in art lessons). My truck: black. My phone: black. The quilt on my bed: black. The deep pit that is my soul: black. Most things I buy: black if possible. It’s not an emo thing, and it’s not in any attempt at being badass in any way. The simplicity and neutrality and strength are what appeals to me in relation to blacks and dark grays.
There is much subtlety in different pigments used to create black paints. For example Ivory Black, which is thankfully not made from ivory waste anymore, is opaque and strong and tends to shift toward brown when mixed with other colors. Lamp Black, now sometimes called Carbon Black since the pigment is made with carbon is my favorite black to use; it can be one of the more transparent black pigments and will shift more blue when mixed with other colors. The last popular black is Mars Black. Mars black is made from a synthetic pigment and is the most neutral black; it dries fast and opaque, and can even be slightly magnetic (I was a bit confused one day when I found a magnet stuck to a tube of Mars black paint that was in a plastic tube).
I believe that it is important to learn to paint without needing to use black pigments to achieve a wide range of subtle colors, but I also find black useful in my work when mixing certain colors. One of my favorite colors to mix is a nice, deep plum color created by mixing black with cadmium red. The best way to mix a good olive green color is simply by mixing black (usually carbon black) with a cadmium yellow hue; this is a color combination that may artists find by mistake when trying to add black pigment to create a darker yellow. Almost all blue pigments tend to be very strong and can overpower your palette easily, but by mixing a strong, deep, highly saturated pthalo blue with a simple combination of your favorite black and your favorite white, you can make a huge range of muted soft blues which can then be more easily tinted into something else or used as a good gray without running the risk of shifting too far toward brown (one of my pet peeves when mixing my own gray using complimentary colors).
Black is a lot more prevalent in much of the art I see now, so I feel it might be losing it’s place as the taboo pigment on a palette; or maybe breaking the rules is just in the nature of many artists. Don’t discount black pigments just because it is what you have been taught. I advise that you take the time to learn the difference in the different kinds of blacks and use them wisely to serve your purposes. I’m a huge proponent of limiting your palette and choosing colors sparingly, and sometimes the best choice for a painting is a saturated bright color, but sometimes I feel like the best choice is just plain old black.