How to Make Black Paint in 5 Steps

There are several benefits to mixing your own black paint instead purchasing paint at an art store:

1. 1. Freedom of color combinations. In color theory, black is not a color but instead the absence of light. Practically, though, black is a combination of different hues that create dark colors. As such, making your own black allows you to play with specific color temperatures. Some black colors will look like a dark green, others more like a dark grey depending on the kind of paint and how much you use.
2. 2. A more dynamic painting. If you are painting the night sky or a dark background, you may use combinations of dark blues alongside cool blacks to allow for a more dynamic work. For example, Johannes Vermeer’s iconic oil painting Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) may at first seem to feature a plain black background, but upon closer inspection, you will note many different shades.
3. 3. Mixing paints promotes more creativity. While learning how to mix colors to create different shades of black, you might feel inspired to do the same for other hues. The paint in a can or a tube is rarely the exact shade a painter will need, so in experimenting with your blacks you can also create other specific colors—burnt sienna, cobalt blue, viridian green—tailored to your paintings’ needs by mixing a variety of colors.

Mixing black paint is like following a recipe: You will need certain ingredients (here, paint colors) and a list of steps to easily create your own black paint.

1. 1. Ready your painting supplies. You can use any kind of paint—oil, acrylics, watercolor—to make a true black. For your paint, you’ll need the three primary colors. You can use hansa yellow, phthalo blue, and quinacridone magenta. For your supplies, gather a sketch pad, an empty clean bucket, a paint brush, and a mixing stick.
2. 2. Test out a mix of colors on a sketch pad. To make pure black, mix blue, magenta, and yellow in equal parts. You can test this out on your sketch pad; put a dab of the three paints on your pad and mix colors with a paint brush or palette knife until achieving a rich black.
3. 3. Experiment with mixing as needed. You can experiment to create other shades of black. Adding in more blue paint creates a cooler black, more yellow paint gives the black a brownish tint, and more magenta, as a warm color, will yield a more vibrant black.
4. 4. Write out your proportions. If you are batching your black paint, you will want to pay careful attention to the amounts of pigments you are mixing. Different colors will affect the outcome of your black, so note what paint color you are using and how much of it before mixing it all together.
5. 5. Mix your paints thoroughly. To achieve a full, dark black, mix your primary colors in equal amounts. Pour your measured paint into an empty bucket or cleaned paint can, mixing blue, yellow, and magenta and stirring thoroughly with a stick.

Consider the following tips for creating shades of black paint:

1. 1. Use secondary colors to create black paint. The three primary colors make black paint, or you can combine just two paints—a secondary color with a primary one. For example, you can mix burnt umber with ultramarine blue or alizarin crimson with phthalo green to create black.
2. 2. Keep a color wheel on hand. A color wheel can help you identify different complementary colors to mix to create black. Playing around with different combinations can allow you to create various shades. For example, mixing red with a dark shade of green yields a deep black, adding reds like cadmium orange creates a warmer black, and starting with a base of yellow ochre can help you create a dark shade of brown that nears black.
3. 3. Mix black and white for varying shades. Keeping some white paint on hand can be a quick way to make your black color a lighter shade of gray. Gradually mix in white until the desired color is achieved.

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