The Munsell Student Color Set

[Marvin Mattelson]

Linda,

The Munsell system is not necessarily just about neutralizing a color. That is merely one option. A color on your palette isn't the same as it appears when placed on your painting because the context changes.

The Munsell system, at least the way I use it, acts as a compass. If I place a color down and it doesn't look right, either the hue, value or chroma (or, in a worse case scenario, a combination of the three) will pop out to me. If the value looks too light, I'll darken it, or too dark and I'll lighten it. If it looks too gray, I'll increase the chroma, or if it's too intense I'll neutralize it. If the hue looks off, I'll go opposite direction. In other words, if a blue looks too blue-green I'll shift it towards a blue-purple.

I'm always thinking in terms of three dimensional color space, HVC.

[Linda Ciallelo]

Marvin,
I see what you're saying. It organizes ones thoughts in such a way that the problem can be "worked on" constructively, in a way that is better than trial and error. Since most of what we do is ask ourselves "what's wrong with this painting"? the Munsell system gives some concrete answers by breaking the color down into different parts so that the problem is more easily identified. It's more like Math. :-)

[Steven Sweeney]

Membership and participation has changed a lot over the years and not everyone is aware of a lot of interesting threads of yore.

The hue/value/chroma analytical process has often come up, perhaps more focused in this thread --

http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?t=2277

-- than anywhere else. Worth a review in connection with this discussion.

[Steven Sweeney]

I must have been very lucky, many years before I undertook any formal training, to have acquired a modest little second-hand book

[Linda Ciallelo]

Like Garth Herrick once said " the most important thing is to have a good reference".