Black, what's wrong with it anyway?

Break of dawn, 
near Whiskey Jack
36"x48" oil on canvas

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I've heard it like all artists have hear it...never paint with solid black or white. So, of course, I do. Not trying to pick a fight with the art establishment or anything but just saying, rather, asking: have you ever noticed the multitude of colours that appear in black? Especially when black is applied with a rough bristle brush and leaves rows or texture lines behind each stroke! Wow, it really is a rainbow in a dark void. 
So I have been painting a few dark paintings lately. I used to hear artists say that it was a refection of how they felt at the time. I know one artist who used that line purely for humour (thanks Jack for that). For me it is not so. I enjoy black like I enjoy red, or yellow or any colour for that matter. I like to spread it all over a surface and see where it takes me. In the case of the picture shown here, I started like that. Just a thick black layer of plain unmixed black. It was pretty overwhelming on a 36"x48" surface! Then I just stood back and looked "into it" and saw this familiar place. This place I had been this past summer. It was Canoe lake but it could have been any lake at night for that matter. It was a passage between two tree lined shores, with layers of receding horizon lines behind it. It was for certain the entrance to Whiskey Jack Bay on Canoe Lake. 
At night the water settles down. Call it the moon effect or whatever, I don;t really know the science behind it but it is very still. The tree's seem to stand taller, more formidable, and as if on guard of their inhabitants. That's it! That's the mover in all of this. It's the fact that the forest comes to life with the night creatures. It is not really still. It is much busier at night. 
That is what I see in the dark of black. That is the motivation behind my latest series of paintings. 
Hope you enjoy them. Love to have your feed back. 
Robert