Salt and Pepper

Within the world of watercolor artists, there is a dogma among many that black pigment should not be used. The idea behind this is that black deadens colors, and that more lively darks are better mixed from deeply pigmented colors, such as dark red and green. There is truth to this, and I use that method often myself. Yet many esteemed artists use paints such as sepia (brown mixed with black), or indigo (blue mixed with black). In this painting of our salt and pepper shakers, I used both. It seemed to me that they would be just the thing to convey the pewter like finish on the shakers. And I think that they were. Conclusion: Used carefully, black has it's place. After all, Renoir called it the "queen of colors". Incidentally, the cloth the salt and pepper are sitting on is a rag table mat that I wove back in my floor loom hand weaving days.