The Black Experiment
Colored Pencil
March 2, 2014
5.5" x 8.5"
-Kyarra belongs to me, of course-


The Black Experiment

So you know that saying that floats around art circles, "don't use black to shade." It's one I've always heard, but I've never seen anyone actually using black to shade. I was curious what that would look like. After all, how does anyone know we shouldn't be doing it if no one actually does it?
So I whipped this up to find out exactly what happens if I do use black to shade. This is done with just base colors and black. Alcohols were used for blending, but no burnishing accept with the respective base colors.

My conclusion: Don't use black to shade.
It didn't come out too bad, but I think they're right about it.
I found black to be rather indelicate and it was really easy to get too dark. Also the fact that I could only render using values limited my ability to control the values; if I wanted something to look round it had to go dark as well. Layering colors like they say makes it possible to render without actually changing values, and that means you have more control over how dark or light you make each part of the image.

So it's not like shading with black automatically makes a bad image, but you can make a better one with much nicer nuance much more easily using a proper layering of colors.

Also:
The best reason I know for not using black for rendering is simply that a black colored pencil will serve you better if used as a darkening agent rather than for rendering. Black is significantly darker in value than any other colored pencil in your collection and will be crucial for pulling out the broadest range of values possible, therefore you're better off letting your other pencils produce the "color black," and keeping your black pencil for the "darkest value black."

Also, more personally, my black pencil breaks easily and it's a bit of a nightmare to keep in usable condition. And it doesn't help that I kept streaking the black into the light areas.

This experiment also got me thinking that I could probably stand to put a lot more color nuances into my work since this is pretty much what my stuff looks like.