The Munsell Student Color Set

[Richard Murdock]

I've been looking for a downside to using Munsell since I started, because everything has one, right? I haven't found but one yet, and that is when I really hit a mix perfectly I am sometimes guilty of forgetting to clean the test bit off the chip because it blends in so well. Other than that, well, I haven't found any downside.

Allan seems to be bothered by the red/blue nature of Munsell's primary red, and goes on to talk about primaries being the colors that can't be mixed from others. That is just about any color at its highest chroma. That means there are perhaps 40 primaries.

Primaries make no difference to a painter, unless he/she is going to hamper themselves by attempting to mix all colors from three. It won't work. One could not mix a 10YR 8/14 from primary red and yellow. What about 5GY 7/12? That's a hard color to hit. Could I do it with primary blue and yellow? I don't think so, since the highest chroma mixes have to be perfectly clean and start as close as possible to the target mix. Since the primary blue is also at chroma 12, and 5GY 7/12 is a warm green-yellow it's likely that chroma would be lost using primaries to mix it. And then there are neutrals. The neutral mixes must also be very clean. How would Allan mix a value string of neutrals from just three primaries?

The idea of using primaries to mix all of ones' colors is wrongheaded. Why wouldn't one use a color that is close to the target color to mix with, instead of trying to create everything from three basic colors? Why not just put out an eye and tie a hand behind one's back? Munsell leads to clarity, not confusion.

The Munsell wheel is based on real pigments, so if you can find the target in the book it can be mixed.

[Marvin Mattelson]

As I've mentioned many times here (more if you factor in the deletions) that I use the Munsell Color System as the basis of my color mixing in painting and teaching. My students are able to quickly grasp the concepts and transform their abilities to match what they see before them.

The traditional color wheel is limited because it is optically incorrect. The fact it is still widely used to teach students is amazing considering the Munsell Color Wheel is almost universally accepted in all industries dealing with color.

[David Clemons]

Pardon me if what I'm about to say is stating the obvious, but I just want to present my thoughts on using Munsell, or any color system for that matter. His is a system based on representing color in a three dimensional tree, not just two as is shown in color wheels. It's possible to create a wheel from his system, but it would be a disection of a 3-D sphere of aligned hues. Most other systems don't acknowledge value (darker and lighter ranges)at all in their structure.

His system centers around the afterimage affect of light perception (stare at a red dot and you'll see a blue-green afterimage,) and his arrangement of five principal colors reflects this affect in terms of a linear balance of opposites.

Balance is a key word to understanding his sytem in that it shows linear gradations for each of the color properties along an axis, the center being a neutral gray. As such, he was able to construct an accurate notation system on a grid to catalog each color chip so it could be easily recreated.

All of the color systems have certain limits. If they're based on light, painters don't use light, but rather pigments which don't mix in the same way. Mixing red and green light makes yellow. Also any system based on colored light that represents itself using printed pigments, is working with a limited construct. Conversely, if the system is based on pigments, which pigments and in what mixture? New pigments are constantly being developed and introduced, and paint companys make their products differently without any standarization. It's like, we have a system, but now how do we use it?

The challenge for painters is to learn how their pigments mix together. Even Munsell doesn't tell you how certain pigments behave. That's up to you to learn how to handle, and to deal with their limitations, not to mention how to modulate the color optically on the canvas with underpainted colors, how neighboring colors affect it, etc.

There's a good book I would recommend by Edith Feisner called "Color Studies" that presents an overview of various systems and basic colro principles rather clearly in an applied manner.

[Allan Rahbek]

I have noted that the Munsell system is based on the visual contrasts that occur after looking at a color for a while and then removing it.
I have done some testings and to me it appears that all the after pictures tend to be relatively cool, no matter if it is the after picture from a cool or hot color. Maybe that is because the after picture is a genuine contrast, which means that it is also contrasting the value, and the after picture is always relatively lighter.

when painting we would not always want a lighter and cooler contrast, so how would this special bias on the Munsell wheel serve us?

I have no problems making neutrals from the RYB system. Al i have to think about is the contend of the three colors. I will attach a scale of red yellow mixtures to illustrate what I mean.
The top mixture is The bluish red ,Permanent Red + the bluish yellow, Cadmium Yellow Lemon. Because of the blue element in the mixture the orange hue has been lowered.

In the bottom example both mixing colors are without the blue element, closer to the goal so to speak.

[Allan Rahbek]

Originally Posted by Richard Murdock

I've been looking for a downside to using Munsell since I started, because everything has one, right? I haven't found but one yet, and that is when I really hit a mix perfectly I am sometimes guilty of forgetting to clean the test bit off the chip because it blends in so well. Other than that, well, I haven't found any downside.

Allan seems to be bothered by the red/blue nature of Munsell's primary red, and goes on to talk about primaries being the colors that can't be mixed from others. That is just about any color at its highest chroma. That means there are perhaps 40 primaries.

Primaries make no difference to a painter, unless he/she is going to hamper themselves by attempting to mix all colors from three. It won't work. One could not mix a 10YR 8/14 from primary red and yellow. What about 5GY 7/12? That's a hard color to hit. Could I do it with primary blue and yellow? I don't think so, since the highest chroma mixes have to be perfectly clean and start as close as possible to the target mix. Since the primary blue is also at chroma 12, and 5GY 7/12 is a warm green-yellow it's likely that chroma would be lost using primaries to mix it. And then there are neutrals. The neutral mixes must also be very clean. How would Allan mix a value string of neutrals from just three primaries?

The idea of using primaries to mix all of ones' colors is wrongheaded. Why wouldn't one use a color that is close to the target color to mix with, instead of trying to create everything from three basic colors? Why not just put out an eye and tie a hand behind one's back? Munsell leads to clarity, not confusion.

The Munsell wheel is based on real pigments, so if you can find the target in the book it can be mixed.

Hi Richard,
I always like to discuss theory's so your reply is much appreciated.

First I would like to state that I believe that I can agree in most of the Munsell system. The grey strings and how colors are valued in the system. It's obvious that a yellow is lighter than red and blue.

But I just don't understand how you can nominate a mixed color to be a primary one and much less 40 primary's.

I don't use primary's to mix colors because I don't have them ! 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.
It's like a compas with North, South, East and West - I don't need to go there, but I know where it is.

I am still waiting to learn.

Marvin, could you please explane to me, in a popular way, what it means that "The traditional color wheel is limited because it is optically incorrect".

[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