Novice black canvas painting simple

If you’ve never painted on a black pre-primed canvas surface before, it may seem a little out of your comfort zone.

Painting on Black Canvas for Beginners: The #1 Way to Easily Create Amazing Drama

Meet Sara, a 30-year acrylic painting veteran. Specializing in paint mixing to create stunning new colors, she’s not only undertaken numerous commissions but also independently sold her captivating art. With over a decade of art gallery management, Sara’s profound understanding of the art world shines. Dedicated to helping her new painting pals find success along their artistic journey, she is committed to staying up-to-date with techniques and trends, making her a valuable resource for beginners to acrylic painting.

Why Painting on Black Canvas is Epic!

Because black is considered the absence of color, most colors of paint will look amazing on top of it. It will turn any composition into a dramatic piece that demands attention. Just imagine, a still life of a pitcher of water with lemons and lemon slices on a black background! Sure, it would look great with a different color used as the background but it definitely wouldn’t have the same dramatic value.

A painting in progress of a black cat and jack-o

The other awesome thing that you can do when painting on a black canvas is creating the illusion that your subject is fading into the shadows. It’s super easy to fuzz out your edges making the transition between light and dark a breeze to achieve. All it takes is a feather-light touch and a minimum amount of paint!

In the image above, you can see that I’m working on a canvas sheet from a Fredrix 12×16 black canvas pad. I really enjoy working on canvas sheets because they’re just like stretched canvas but take up less space and you can either lay them flat or stick them to a piece of plywood to mimic painting on a stretched canvas. If you haven’t tried painting on a canvas sheet you should really give it a go.

Another choice you might want to consider is painting on a black canvas panel. It’s like getting the same space saving benefits of a canvas sheet but they’re super sturdy. This is awesome if you paint like I do and sometimes get aggressive with your application technique (sorry brushes and canvases!).

The Best Time to Whip Out a Black Canvas

You can create a painting on black canvas whenever you feel like it but, in my little ‘ol opinion, there are a few subjects that are so flipping amazing against a black backdrop.

Flowers
Nightscapes
Anything where you’re trying to create an eerie feeling
Portraits

Flowers are typically delicate and have a lot of light and shadow. Because of this, painting on black canvas will make the colors pop and will easily create depth and dimension, even if you’re painting impressionistic flowers.

Three purple-pink and white flowers on a black background.

It makes sense that painting nightscapes on black canvas would be a top choice since you already have the deep shadows taken care of. To help your nightscapes look less flat, add deep shades of blue to your black background. The difference will be subtle but will easily create a layered effect that will give you subtle depth.

I love painting creepy stuff! Like, it’s my favorite thing in the world and I try to paint something creepy at least once a year even if I do only bring it out during the Halloween season (which lasts for the entire month of October in my house).

Whether it’s an old graveyard, an abandoned house, or a spooky path through the dark woods, painting on black canvas will help you create a haunted feeling without too much effort.

You really don’t see this too often, but painting portraits on black canvas is stunning! Because you aren’t distracted by the background, all of the attention goes to the subject of the portrait. To me, the contrast gives this old world feel to the portrait that you just can’t get without the black background.

Did you know that you can buy a stretched canvas that has black gesso already added? The perk of buying a black canvas is that you don’t have to take the step to paint it black yourself.

Acrylic paint colors will vary in their level of opacity. Some will show up nice, bright and solid against a dark background. Others will be very “see through” and will barely show up against the black.

One way to find out whether a paint shows up “opaque”or “translucent” is to test it out yourself! Simply make little strokes of paint on your black canvas to see how it shows up.

Another way you can learn about the opacity of a color is looking at the tube of paint.

There might be a symbol on the paint bottle that will tell you whether the color is translucent or not.

The Liquitex brand uses these square symbols and here is what they mean:

Tip #2 Paint A Layer of Titanium White First

If you want to use a color that is labeled as “translucent” (or you’re just not sure if it is opaque or see-through), you can try painting a layer of white on the black surface first.

You don’t necessarily need to paint a 100% thick and solid white surface (as you can see a lot of black is still showing through on the pumpkin).

Allowing some black to still show through helps create some depth and texture with the painting.

You can see with the final results of this painting that those black lines that I left alone make it look like the pumpkin is bumpy.

Also the brightest part of the painting (the moon) shows up bright because the first layer was painted solid titanium white.

Tip #3 Double Load Your Brush With Titanium White

Titanium white is a 100% opaque color. If you don’t want to experiment with whether a color will look opaque or transluscent, I recommend simply “double loading” your brush in titanium white.

That means add both white and the color to the brush and paint on your surface.

You’ll get a bright opaque color that looks almost pastel-like because the white will blend with your color. I did this with my Black Canvas Cactus Painting.

However, if you don’t want the color to look “pastel like” then I recommend painting the area white first and then applying the color after the white dries.