I’m trying to find a dark color mix that works well with my limited palette (yellow ochre not pictured above). I tried a number of mixes and then read about people mixing raw umber and ultramarine blue. I was skeptical that it would make a good chromatic black, but when I tinted the umber with white and spread it out thin, I noticed a yellowish hue. This works perfectly with ultramarine’s purplish blue hue. Although the mix (in the boxed section) is a little greenish when tinted, I would suspect that adding a tiny dab of magenta would make it slightly more gray. What mixes do you use for darks/blacks?
I'm sure that would make a lovely black color! I have used burnt sienna and phthalo blue for watercolor — I imagine that the burnt umber would create a similar effect.
Burnt sienna has a red under tone. While burnt umber is more neutral. So umber gives darker mixture and more neutral wen you need to add white.
Sign in to leave a comment.
Not a member yet?
Join over 5500 other painters and share your
paintings with the world!
Burnt umber and phtalo blue. Sometimes I add phtalo green and alizarin to it.