When is black not black?

The picture book I’m creating is about the moon, which means I’m using a fair amount of black. I tried watercolour but it wasn’t ‘black’ enough. So I moved to acrylic.

The covering was there – the black was deep, but the areas where I wanted the colour to be lighter I used the acrylic like you would watercolour. The result is a muddy brown.

Just nasty.

Then I moved to a little colour called Payne’s Grey. Now I know I could have mixed my own blue based black, but really I would be mixing for ages. Most of the backgrounds are black.

Now, as I allow the paint brush strokes to be seen, there is a pleasing blue-grey-black. Very nice.

I’d advise anyone to have a tube of Payne’s Grey in their art box, whether acrylic, watercolour or oil. 🙂