The Munsell Student Color Set

[Julie Deane]

I sat in Marvin's color theory class, and then tried an experiment.

I mixed a certain shade of gray-green using
1. green and a complementary color and
2. green plus a neutral gray.
I couldn't believe my eyes! I could see no difference in my end results.

Using the gray made it faster and easier to produce the desired color.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Just for the sake of clarification here, the Munsell System of color notation is only an organized and mathematical way of specifying the three traits of a color: hue, value and chroma. Using Munsell to identify the color you've mixed allows you to logically determine what you need to add in order to hit your target.

Munsell is not about mixing and adding grays to make colors more neutral. You can achieve neutrality in a variety of ways, as Julie noted. Adding grays is a technique for neutralizing color that some, like Julie and myself, feel is easier and more efficient then other techniques. Munsell is not a technique or methodology, it's just a way to categorize color.