I am working with black ink, usually Indian ink on a white canvas for the landscapes or on white paper or yupo paper for figure drawings.
HE MADE IT BECAUSE ANISH KAPOOR WON’T SHARE HIS BLACK WITH ANYONE ELSE
*Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make it’s way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.
*Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make it’s way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.
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SO NOW EVERYONE* ON THE PLANET CAN USE THE BLACKEST BLACK
- Absorbs up to 99% of visible light
- Apply with a brush or a spray
- Works with most surfaces (wood, paper, canvas, plastic, metal, plaster etc…)
- Thins with water
- Lightfast and archival
- No need for cooking, vacuum chambers, or weapons-grade scientists
- Smells like fresh coffee
- Not available to Kapoor
Key things to remember:
- Use a nice soft brush (not a rubbish scratchy comblike one)
- Apply at room temperature 10 – 25 c ( 50 – 77 F)
- Use as little paint as possible and spread it out nicely
- Allow to dry between coats (at least two hours, overnight is better)
- Use a hairdryer to get max blackness
- Seal absorbent (porous) things with 25% PVA and 75% Water
- Prime shiny (non – absorbent) things with primer or Black 2.0
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USED BY THOUSANDS OF ARTISTS
Speedball Super Black Waterproof India Ink
Recently I have been experimenting with a different approach. Instead of drawing with black pigments on a white background. I am drawing with white fluid acrylic on a black background.
I like this technique because it forces you to think differently and add more paint on the lighter areas instead of the usual techniques, like watercolor techniques, where you add more paint on the darker areas. I guess it is a way of working that is a bit similar to scratching board techniques where you scratch the black off the board to make white appear.
I recently completed a few forest paintings using only white fluid acrylic on a black background.
If you want to try these techniques, you can start by painting your whole canvas with black acrylic.
For this painting I worked in a series of parallel lines to lighten the background and I left the tree black.
It took quite some time to complete the painting.
I used a dipping pen and Golden high flow acrylic paint.
I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.
Golden High Flow Acrylics
Incredibly flexible, Golden High Flow Acrylics have an ink-like consistency that lends itself to a wide range of techniques painting, drawing, staining, glazing, inking, hand-lettering, airbrushing, and more. – High Flow Colors, Set of 10
In this other example, I did draw the light areas by scribbling with the dipping pen and ink.
Scribbling with white ink on the black canvas.
(Click on any picture to see a larger version)
Feel free to share pictures of your black on white or white on black paintings in the comments.
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Sandrine Pelissier
Originally from France, I have been living in North Vancouver, Canada for the past 20 years. My work has been collected and exhibited extensively in Canada and internationally. I am also part of the Art Rentals and sales program of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Many of my paintings have been published in Art books and magazines (Artist Magazine, Watercolor Artist Magazine, Acrylic Magazine, International Artist Magazine). I wrote 2 art instruction books with North Light/F+W Books. I have been writing for the last 5 years for my blog: paintingdemos.com, that has a mailing list of about 10 000 subscribers and about 20 000 visitors per month. I am an active member in the community, as a co-founder of the North Shore Art crawl, a co-founder of a weekly life drawing group, a board member of the North Vancouver Arts Council, and have been invited as a juror for public art, art grants and juried exhibitions. You can read more about my collaborations here.
