Ba ba black sheep

Who knew my favorite color would just be a mixture of all the colors? Black. It's bold, it's thick, it's grey, it's deep, it's heavy, it's light...it's the best. So, when Melissa Sweet demonstrated how to make shades without black, it got me thinking. At the SCBWI LA conference in 2012, Melissa handed out these simple little papers.

It is a little color wheel of shades you can create without the overbearing presence of black. I keep this on my bulletin board as an easy reference.
















These are a couple experiments with shading. I love the pear on the left because the red makes me think it's sitting next to a big shiny red apple. The pear on the right has less room for imagination. You can see how harsh black looks when compared to an image that used complementing colors.

Now, I'll always be a big fan of using black but when I'm looking to add more depth, I might just ditch it.