#79 April Abstract, Floral Stencil

This one took a while; it was going to be a March Abstract for left-over paint, but I never completed the in-between areas, as I was waiting for it to dry enough for that task....and as I was waiting for it to dry I would keep adding more paint here and there.  Last night I finally added the in-between "black" color.  I recently came across an on-line article about mixing paint, and it talked about mixing black: "mixing all 3 primaries will create black; it is liking making a very dark purple and then adding its opposite, yellow."  And then it went on to say: "ultramarine blue mixed with burnt umber is a cheap and fast way to create black."  Cheap?  That was explained in the "how to mix brown" section: "since earth pigments are cheap compared to the primary colors, it is advisable to buy brown oil paint and not mix it."  For me, Miss Economy, the advice was like finding treasure.

From the beginning I wanted black in the in-between areas of this painting.  To help that effort, I started with a black wrapped canvas, it is 12x12 inches.  I taped down the stencil, and tap-tapped red acrylic paint in the holes, ie the flowers.  Then I oil-painted over those red areas, but wasn't very neat about it, figuring the neatness issue would be solved when I put down the black paint.  It worked as planned.  Only one area sticks out, one where I used more safflower oil in the black paint, it looks very wet still.  Hopefully in a month it will look like the other areas.

Of course of all my paints on-hand, the one I don't have is burnt umber.  So my black was mixed with ultramarine blue and all 3 browns that I do own: burnt sienna, raw umber and raw sienna.....equal parts of all 4.  This same article said that if you paint something black-black (ie with purchased black paint), it can look strange in a painting, as if there are holes in the painting where you've put the black....and the solution is to mix your own black.  Now I know how to do that....and if I need just a tiny bit of black I'll maybe still use my purchased black, but cut with a bit of raw umber.

Still using my broken paintbrush, btw.

Link to that awesome article: http://ranartblog.com/blogarticle04.html