Acheiving a Blue-Black Colour

What is the colour of your aqueous acrylic emulsion?

This sounds like you need a pigment, similar to tinting paint.

well acrylic is a transparent resin...so if i dont add any pigments at all...my end product will be transparent

By your color description, it almost sounds like gun metal bluing.

Gunsmiths generally use hot bluing.

Don't know if this fits your application but maybe gives you another place to look.

An "aqueous acrylic emulsion" sounds like paint. Have you looked at a paint store, or an automotive paint store?

Or, is there more to the emulsion than you have told us?

This is really not much to go on.

you should look for pigments.

Just mix varying proportions of Prussian Blue and Carbon Black until you get the proper shade when the paint dries. Both are pigments (rather than dyes), both are non-toxic and chemically very stable. Good luck.

You would get a green if you were mixing light but pigments just refuse to behave sensibly. Cheeky bastards.

hey ky thanks for your comment. well whenever i use ultramarine blue in my emulsion, i usually plasticize the pigment first before adding it to my formulation. is it possible to plasticize chrome orange deep hue pigment too?

thanks

I am an artist, painter/sculptor. I usually paint with acrylics (polymer emulsion). The rule when trying to achieve a colour is to keep it as simple and pure as possible. Not a good idea to mix colours to get a unique colour. This usually produces a muddy unappealing end result, especially in acrylc. I believe the best solution for your purpose is using Paynes Grey. It is a black on the cool (blue) side but turns more to the blue side when thinned down. This colour can be obtained in any artist supply store.

Sounds like a fountain pen ink colour to me.

But, in case it's not that obvious: Ky really knows what he's talking about in this area.

As I read correctly, a very dark blue is the intention. Does Ky paint? Usually if you mix a deep orange and blue (diverse directions on the colour wheel scale) you will get a muddy, dull colour. If your intention is to have muddy/dull, fine. Paynes grey keeps it vibrant.

When I first saw this done by a master I could not believe my eyes. There are a small number of other colours (pigments) that can be used but like I said , to get it right you have to treat it like gun powder. You want everything standing out from the shadows to explode.

Viridian green and crimson. This combination results in a cold black at least it looks cold to me.

While I was doing interior decorating, not just one room but passenger liners, we had different deck themes, toning and tinting wall colours with the appropriate "blacks" to fit the interior. Any colour used in the surrounding would then start to "sing". It is a very subtle effect but it works.

There is so much more to it but one has to start somewhere. To see if one has it right, mix the final "black" with white and if it doesn't result in a gray and is too blue or too orange try again.

This is another example using only those two colours. Good luck, Ky.

You are right Randall.

When you take good ink and put it on wet paper and let it run, spread and dry it shows different colours while spreading and finally drying. This way you can see how the ink was made.

I wonder if a deep blue dye, coupled with carbon black might help produce the effect you desire?

A small series of experiments with a few millilitres of emulsion would show the merits (if any) of this... .