 Hello there, it's Sandy Olnok, and today I've got some ideas for you on colors for black hair. Out of all the colors that anybody asks me for what my favorite combination is, it's black hair. Black hair and black dogs. So I guess both of those are the same problem, trying to figure out how to make an object that's black look like it's black, but not make it look like it's a blob of something. And the idea is to color it in such a way that you have some light hitting it. Now there are a lot of people who do what I call helmet hair, they have a white highlight on it, and there are very few black objects, especially hair, that are going to have that white, shiny, hard highlight on it. What I like to do is start with a mid-tone color, and in this first instance I'm calling this the cool combination because it's cool grays and a black. And I start with a middle type of color, a five or a six, so that it doesn't get too pale. And then start adding in black for shadows, and then start adding in a mid-tone color to start to blend in between them. So this one is going to be the warm combination. Same thing as I did with the straight hair in the first one, doing wavy hair in this. I thought it would be fun to try some different hairdos and different types of curls and stuff in hair while I was doing this. And for waves, and for any hair basically, you want anything that's underneath another bunch of hair, another grouping of hair to be in shadow. So I put the shadow in second with the black marker, and then start to blend in between them, not necessarily trying to get rid of those lines, but to create some lines that are a little bit similar. So there's some kind of definition in the darker areas without being fully black. I do like to leave some lines in the hair so that it looks like strands of hair, but not a ton of them, and it really depends on what kind of hair as well. Now this combo I'm calling beachy. It's not because it's a beachy look or anything, but because the colors make me think of a beach, because it's tans and blues. And yes, you can use blues in hair. My goodness gracious, Sandy's crazy, right? So this one is going to be curly hair, and I'm going to use a B99 to make the curl shadows. And when you're doing curly hair, there's a lot of different types of curly hair. Of course, this has wide curls, so it's very loose curls. And I'm leaving a lot of room between them and making larger strokes. If it's tiny curls, you'll use smaller strokes. So you need to make sure that you adjust for the scale of the curls that you've got going. And then I'm adding some black shadows on top of that B99 with the black marker just in some of the areas around the B99. So it's going to cut down on the sting of that blue, but it's also going to give some shadow to that and a little bit of depth to it. Next is going in with a gray marker, like a mid-tone gray. This one is a C5, and just start to fill in some of those areas. Leave a couple of tiny highlights, maybe, but fill a lot of that in. Allow just some of the tan to show up as highlights on the top. And if you're really uncomfortable with the blue, then use something like an E47 to knock back some of that blue to be more of a brownish color. But leave some of that blue because it's really amazing. Now, this is a combination I've used before. There is a video here on YouTube with it that I just absolutely love. You probably know I love yellow, and I also love yellow with purple. So in that other video, I had done an afro with just really cool combinations, just layering those two colors together. And the reason that they work is because they're compliments. Compliments are opposite each other on the color wheel. So if you put down some purple and it feels too purple, just put some yellow over it. If you want to dull down the yellow, then you put purple over it. And the two colors, when you start layering them together, start to really work to make a real interesting hair color that can still feel like it's black hair. It's still going to feel like a black hairdo, but it's not going to feel like a mass of huge just black, black, black, black hair. It's going to feel like there's light on it. There's something, some light shining on it. And I think it's rather beautiful in this particular color combination. You can of course do the same kind of a thing with rays and not have all that color in there. But I would do because it's so much fun to put color in things. So I've got my black for my shadows in the under portions of the hair. And then I'm just using another blue marker, a blue violet this time to do some of that stretching out of the color. And then I decided to go in with a C9 and start to add in some finer details so I can get some texture into the hair. On Friday's video, which is the thing that inspired today's hair video, I'm going to be doing a really cool technique for an afro that you're going to want to see because it was so cool. It's actually not just for afros. It is going to have a lot of techniques that you can do with it using it in other ways. So next up I'm calling this the muted rainbow. You know, I couldn't think of a better name for it, but I'm going to use this really bright, intense blue violet and tone it down with a brown. So these two are complements as well. So blue and orange are complements of each other. And just using the two of them in combination and then layering that T7 and the black over top of it allows that puff ponytail to really glow with almost it feels like a rainbow ish in the hair itself like there's a bunch of colors in there. And when you're doing a hairdo like this, if there are braids in the hair and you can see some of the scalp, then you need to make the scalp color look like the scalp color. So do that first and then do the braids on top. Once you finish drawing the braids, it's helpful to go back into it with some of the color that's underneath and smooth out and soften some of the color that's there so you don't end up with really hard edges on the braids. Next combination I'm calling layered because I ran out of words to call things and this one is twists. At least I think it is I tried doing research when one of my followers asked me in December if I would do a video on how to color twists, and there are like dozens and dozens of types of twists. And I'm just going to I picked one I'm just going to try it and see you guys can tell me I'm completely wrong, but I'm going to try. So the shaved hair on the side of the head, I'm just doing with skin tone for the fill in color in black for the hair. And then I'm using the black marker to create some negative shapes around some of the twists, not around every single one of them you don't want it to look like a hedgehog necessarily. But in adding a lot of color onto this, it's going to hide the messiness of these lines. So it looks like a hot mess right now. But I'm using a gray, a dark gray to go in between that N6 to start to create some open areas where just some of those highlights on some of the twists are still light. Everything else is going dark and starting to merge together. Because then I'm going to put color in that as well. And just keep building it up until I end up with something that looks subtle so that the whole hairdo hangs together. But it also looks like different pieces. It looks like a different texture than the others. Now I have no idea if I've achieved that or not, but I'm trying. And I'm layering some of the brown on top of the blue color just so I don't end up with anything that's too blue. But I do like the combination of blues and browns together in black hair. Because if you were to just look across real quickly at some of these hairdos, you would definitely think that they are black hair. But they're more than black. They're more than a cool gray in them. They've got some character to them that I just find much more interesting. So for each of the twists I added on the top edges around the edge of the hair. I added more of that brown just to give it a little more light to it. If you would like to download a copy of this page with all the colors listed on it, you can do that over at art-classes.com. I've put it in a link down in the doobly-doo and it is free for you. Also, I wanted to give you a sneak peek at what's coming on Friday. So you're going to get to see this drawing coming up of Nina Simone. And all week long I'll be doing more hair over on social media. So be sure to follow along and I will see you again on Friday with Nina. Bye guys!