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Black on White and White on Black

Black on White and White on Black paintings on ARTiful, painting demos by Sandrine Pelissier
Inspiration / Painting / Painting technique / Step by step demonstrations

Black on White and White on Black

Once in a while, I enjoy working in black and white.

You might also enjoy the simplicity, contemporary look and heighten impact of paintings and drawings made in black and white

I am working with black ink, usually Indian ink on a white canvas for the landscapes or on white paper or yupo paper for figure drawings.

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

Speedball Super Black Waterproof India Ink

“Super black” means its blackness will be very permanent and fadeless. Contains 100% carbon black pigment. Also free-flowing, non-clogging, and waterproof.

Recently I have been experimenting with a different approach. Instead of drawing with black pigments on a white background. I am drawing with white fluid acrylic on a black background.

I like this technique because it forces you to think differently and add more paint on the lighter areas instead of the usual techniques, like watercolor techniques, where you add more paint on the darker areas. I guess it is a way of working that is a bit similar to scratching board techniques where you scratch the black off the board to make white appear.

I recently completed a few forest paintings using only white fluid acrylic on a black background.

If you want to try these techniques, you can start by painting your whole canvas with black acrylic.

For this painting I worked in a series of parallel lines to lighten the background and I left the tree black.

It took quite some time to complete the painting.

I used a dipping pen and Golden high flow acrylic paint.

I am a Blick Art Materials affiliate and I receive a small compensation for sales. That does not effect in any way the cost of the purchaser’s order but it helps me keeping the content of this blog free.

Golden High Flow Acrylics

Incredibly flexible, Golden High Flow Acrylics have an ink-like consistency that lends itself to a wide range of techniques painting, drawing, staining, glazing, inking, hand-lettering, airbrushing, and more. – High Flow Colors, Set of 10

The finished painting: TimeLines

In this other example, I did draw the light areas by scribbling with the dipping pen and ink.

Scribbling with white ink on the black canvas.

The finished painting: Raveled

(Click on any picture to see a larger version)

Feel free to share pictures of your black on white or white on black paintings in the comments.

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