The Munsell Student Color Set

[Richard Murdock]

Allan, using your definition of a primary color, one that cannot be mixed from another, there are more than 40 colors out at the extremes of chroma, and to mix them correctly one must start with colors as high or higher in chroma, and as close as possible to the target. Again, Munsell is based on pigment, not theory. We paint with pigments, not light.

There are many color theories, so I am not certain which theory you refer to when you say, "My blue is a bit reddish and my red is bluish plus a little yellow and so on, because I use the availeble pigments Ultramarine blue and Crimson red and I have never thought about them as primary's - but I know where they are placed on the theoretical color system."

There are reds -- such as in a strongly lit dark red rose -- that cannot be painted from any crimsom available, unless the painter is willing to accept lower chroma than is in the rose. Although ultramarine is very useful there are blues that cannot be painted from it.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Hi Allan, it is very nice of you to offer your advise, but to call Munsell a "false prophet" and advising me to not waste my time, meant to me that you did not take the time to find out who Munsell is, what is theory is about and that you seem to think I don't know what I am talking about. IF my reply seemed defensive, it might be that I am overall getting a bit tired of having my patience tested.

Not one to believe in putting one system down over another, I offer what I have learned or am learning to those who are interested. I do not advocate following anybody's advise blindly, but recommend we each try new things to find out if there is anything to be gained that can be applied to the style we work in.

I am not teaching, nor preaching but sharing my knowledge and work progress as one artist to another. I have several readers on my blog who like to follow this experiment and I have labeled the posts "Lessons 1,2,3,etc to make the process easier to follow.

Knowledge is power! The more we know as an artist the better we can make educated judgments on how to improve our own work.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Allan,

Red and green are not true optical compliments. Close but no cigar. Using the principles of simultaneous contrast, if you place, for example, a red card against a white field the eye tries to balance out the color red with it's optical compliment. If the red card is removed there will be a blue green after image.

The Munsell color wheel is based on optical compliments: yellow-green and purple, blue-green and red, yellow-red and blue, red purple and green, and blue-purple and yellow.

According to Philip Hale's book about Vermeer, published in 1913, the Boston artists (Paxton et al) were familiar with this concept.

[Steven Sweeney]

That there is more than one way to skin the color wheel cat is demonstrated by my printer, which produces gorgeous photo-quality images across the spectrum, not with blue, yellow and red inks, but cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow and black. That so-called CMYK model is yet just one model, particularly suited to printing technologies. But like first hearing that the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh predates biblical accounts, it

[Richard Bingham]

[QUOTE=Steven Sweeney] . . . the

[Richard Monro]

The problem I have always had with published color wheels is that they are theoretical and do not reflect true artist colors. I have found a true color wheel that finally is helpful to those of us who practice fine art. The real color wheel be found at:

http://realcolorwheel.com/colorwheel.htm.

[Steven Sweeney]

Another helpful introduction to Munsell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsell_color_system
The cylindrical model, with its chroma, value and hue coordinates, is especially useful in visualizing how the system is constructed.

And again, this reference is particularly well annotated, for further investigation.

[Allan Rahbek]

[QUOTE=Marvin Mattelson]Allan,

Red and green are not true optical compliments. Close but no cigar. Using the principles of simultaneous contrast, if you place, for example, a red card against a white field the eye tries to balance out the color red with it's optical compliment. If the red card is removed there will be a blue green after image.

The Munsell color wheel is based on optical compliments: yellow-green and purple, blue-green and red, yellow-red and blue, red purple and green, and blue-purple and yell

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Ah, Allan.... I see you are doing what I am doing. Mixing colors! Thanks for showing these samples.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Alan, if it works for you then that's all the validation you need.

It didn't work for me when I first struggled with painting theory and how to manifest it into practical technical terms. This was about 30 years ago. I was painting (or at least trying to paint) in acrylics when I discovered a new line of paint, Liquitex Modular Acrylics, based on the Munsell Color Notation System.

Somehow it all made logical sense to me because the tubes were identified by general hue names (red, blue, etc.) and values, as opposed to traditional packaging (Ulramarine) nomenclature. They also manufactured a set of neutral grays, to be used for reducing chroma.

The Munsell color wheel made sense. The logic of the relationships was so clear and gave me a big leg up. I could base my decisions on logic and not recipes. Within two years I was painting covers for Time Magazine and doing advertising campaigns for clients like IBM. I've tried to spread the word ever since.

Years later, I started to study the teachings of Frank Reilly with John Murray. Reilly based much of his methodology on his adaptation of Munsell, so it seemed a logical step in my evolution. This has, in turn, opened my eyes further and given me the foundation to develop my own ideas.