You can make the color black in a few different contexts: paint, digital color, and even homemade craft materials like playdough or simple DIY paint.

Quick Scoop

1. How to make black paint by mixing colors

For most art projects (acrylic, watercolor, gouache), you can mix black from other colors instead of using a tube of premade black.

Basic approaches:

  • Mix all three primary colors:
    • Equal parts red, yellow, and blue give a dark, near‑black color.
  • Mix complementary colors (colors opposite on the wheel):
    • Blue + orange.
* Red + green.

* Purple + yellow.
  • Use classic artist combos:
    • Ultramarine blue + burnt umber makes a rich, deep black; adjust with more umber for a warmer black or more blue for a cooler black.

Mini steps (example: ultramarine + burnt umber):

  1. Put a small amount of ultramarine blue on your palette.
  1. Add roughly the same amount of burnt umber next to it.
  1. Mix together; if it looks too brown, add a bit more blue; if it looks too blue, add more umber.
  1. Test on paper and tweak until it reads as a deep black in your lighting.

You can then:

  • Lighten it with white to get greys or “light black.”
  • Warm it with a dark red like alizarin crimson, or cool it with a dark green or blue such as phthalo green/blue.

2. How to make black in DIY / home crafts

If you literally have no black paint but need “black” for a simple craft, you can improvise.

Options include:

  • Homemade black acrylic‑style paint:
    • Mix a dark powder (like a black pigment powder or similar), glue, and black ink with a little water to get a usable black paint for drawing and basic painting projects.
  • Black playdough:
    • Make a standard playdough base and color it with black food coloring or black pigment until you get the depth you want; the principle is the same as other colors, just more intense dye.

These homemade versions are great for non‑professional projects where non‑toxic ingredients matter, especially for kids’ crafts.

3. How to make black in digital art

In digital design, making black is very straightforward.

  • On RGB screens (phones, monitors, tablets):
    • Set color to R: 0, G: 0, B: 0 for pure digital black.
  • On CMYK (print‑oriented setups):
    • Use high K (black) value; a common “rich black” is something like C, M, and Y at non‑zero values plus high K, depending on your print profile (your software or printer preset usually provides options).

Even with the same RGB numbers, black can look slightly different across screens because of calibration and brightness, so it may appear more “washed out” or deeper depending on the device.

4. Why mix your own black?

Artists and crafters often prefer mixed blacks instead of straight‑from‑the‑tube black because:

  • Mixed blacks have subtle color biases (warm, cool, neutral) that give shadows more depth and life.
  • You stay within the same color family as the rest of your palette, which keeps the whole painting more harmonious.
  • You can quickly roll from black to rich greys, browns, or dark colored shadows just by adjusting the mix.

A simple example: ultramarine + burnt umber black, lightened with white, creates a beautiful range of greys for fog, stone, or metal, all from the same base mixture.

TL;DR:

  • For paint: mix red + yellow + blue, or mix complementary pairs like blue + orange or ultramarine + burnt umber until it looks black.
  • For DIY crafts: use dark powder or ink plus glue and water, or heavy black coloring in playdough.
  • For digital: set RGB to 0,0,0 for pure black on screens.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.