Traditional color theory uses the ideas of the “color wheel” and the value scale, but typically these are not integrated into any kind of practical three-dimensional color space. For example, in The Art of Color Itten reverts to Runge’s early 19th century sphere model, which (unlike Munsell’s sphere) places the strongest colors of all hues on the equator, irrespective of their tonal value. Itten’s sphere thus ignores Munsell’s recognition of the differences in value and absolute chroma of these colors, and lacks a consistent representation of the vital dimension of value. In contrast, modern color theory makes constant practical use of concepts of color space. Color spaces form a framework for all serious modern investigations of topics as diverse as color perception, color “harmony” and the emotive associations of color combinations. In future posts I will discuss how painters can use the Munsell dimensions of hue, value and chroma as a potent framework for observing colors, for understanding color mixing in paints, and for painting effects of light from the imagination.

Texts explaining modern color theory for artists began to appear soon after the Helmholtz-Maxwell revolution, the most influential being Modern Chromatics, or The Students’ Text-book of Color (1879) by American physics professor and amateur painter Ogden Rood, which was published in three languages and numerous editions into the early 20th century, and again in 1973. A glance through its 330 pages is a revelation as to the level of technical understanding of color and light that was considered appropriate for art students in the era of Sargent and the late impressionists. Today, excellent introductions to basic modern color theory are available in The New Munsell Student Color Set and James Gurney’s (nicely complementary) Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter, while more detailed information can be found on websites such as Bruce MacEvoy’s immense handprint.com, and my own more modest site, The Dimensions of Colour.

Nevertheless, it is very clear that a great many art teachers are not planning to give up their attachment to simplistic traditional color theory any time soon. Indeed, art and design teachers educated in the age of Itten are now in positions of authority and influence, and have been known to actively suppress the introduction of modern color theory in their institutions. Student demand, fed by awareness of modern color theory now provided by the internet, presents the only prospect for speedy change. The current situation among art teachers is particularly disappointing when we recall that a century ago it was an artist and art teacher who was developing the system that would become the cornerstone of modern color theory.

The trick to painting realistic flesh is to paint within this gamut.    Of course, temperaments vary considerably, and who are enthralled by art and design may not be enamored with precision.    Still, it is nice to have the knowledge when creativity demands.   This will mean learning to neutralize higher chroma colorants or finding the correct one to raise the chroma.    Luckily, a flesh palette can be made of many different pigments in many combinations.

Starting Out with Mixing Pigments

So what colors are the best to start with?   Advice: it is always better to begin the most obvious.   One of the benefits of living today is the great diversity of pigments available.   In order to parse the useful from the exotic, find colorants that are already red, yellow-red or yellow and low in chroma.   These could be natural pigments dug from the ground or synthetic variants.   If the former these will be the ochres, umbers and siennas; the later may be called oxides or Mars colors.   Add black and white, and you have a convenient basis for creating a fleshly palette.   The only extra pigment will be a red.    Find one close to your desired hue, value and chroma as well.

Some people, by contrast, are more inclined to try more difficult combinations.   Difficult is said, because higher chroma will require, a lot of neutralization.  This can be achieved by adding a neutral directly composed of black and white or it can be achieved by mixing in hues that are opposite or near opposite to the gamut of flesh. For example, instead of using black, try ultramarine blue.   Instead of yellow ochre, use cadmium yellow.   Add cadmium red and white and you will cover the range, including the ruddy areas of the figure such as hands, feet, nose, cheeks and ears.    However, when mixed properly, these colors will be indistinguishable from the earth colors mentioned above.

In the next article will cover strategies on how to arrange your palette, Munsell style.

Replacement Color Chips are Fast, Easy Affordable Replacements for any Munsell Book of Color

Grand Rapids, MI – May 30, 2013 – Munsell Color, part of the X-Rite company and the leader in producing physical color standards, today announced the release, The Munsell Replacement Color Chips,    designed to replace worn or missing color chips from any Munsell Book of Color.

The Munsell replacement color chips provide an affordable way to replace the color chips in any Munsell Book of Color, without replacing the entire book.  The replacement chips are made so convenient that they can practically be used out of the box.  Packaged in a lightweight plastic case that fits in a pocket or purse, you can easily transport and use your new color chips on-the-go. The replacement chips are an accurate tool for virtually any industry or application that requires accurate color communication.

“The primary use for our new replacement chips are to replace worn or missing color chips from any Munsell Book of Color,” said Art Schmehling, Munsell Color Services Business Manager. “In addition, they are in themselves, a great on-the-go tool for communicating working color standards and palette development.”

Benefits and Specifics about the Munsell Replacement Color Chips

• Munsell replacement chips are packaged by each of the 10 major Munsell major hues in a lightweight, molded plastic case
• Each package includes the same number of chips for each hue as in the Munsell Book of Color (i.e., number of chips varies based on the hue, value and chroma for each hue page)
• Replacement color chips are available in matte or gloss finishes

For more information, contact Art Schmehling, at (616) 803-2703, or email aschmehling@xrite.com.

About Munsell Color

Munsell Color is comprised of the original Munsell Color Company that Albert H. Munsell started nearly a century ago. The company, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan develops and produces physical color standards based on Munsell color theory. The result is a variety of simple yet accurate visual color tools that help professional, artists and others with color more effectively. Munsell is part of X-Rite, the global leader in color science and technology, which also includes design industry color leader, Pantone LLC. Munsell color tools are used across a wide range of industries. For more information, visit www.munsell.com.

Grab Your Wedding Color Palette from These Great Sites

The Knot is the internet’s most visited one-stop wedding planning solution. Brides, planners, vendors and guests can all log on to get expert advice and etiquette tips. The Wedding Colors section guides brides in choosing their signature color scheme and provides them with an assortment of photos that can be saved and later shown to a planner.  The Knot features an easy-to-use wedding colors page, with separate sections devoted to ideas for each color.

The Perfect Palette wedding blog dedicates their site to planning nuptials through a colored lens. The site is full of fun creative ideas on how to use those colors, create inspiration boards and get color tips that you can share. The Perfect Palette can show both brides and grooms the many different ways they can use color to put their special touch on their wedding day.  Their blog gives users the ability to search by color, or browse entire palettes that have already been curated.

LuxeFinds helps you plan any fancy event, but weddings are their specialty. This lifestyle search engine can help anyone looking to style a high end event or to have it styled. Targeted at women with a sophisticated sartorial sense, LuxeFinds allows you to search and sort by color to get tips on fashion, beauty and home décor aggregated from blogs around the web. Here you’ll also find ideas for food recommendations, travel preparations, and even crafting ideas.

Brides.com spins the color wheel to come up with unique wedding color combinations. You can leave it up to chance with random settings, or you can select a color family and refine your search by choosing similar hues, contrasting colors or neutral undertones within that family. Their color studio tool mocks-up a place setting with a charger plate in one color, a folded napkin in another shade, and topped-off with a name card for guests, just to give you an idea of what your table settings might look like.

David’s Bridal is not just a discount bridal dress chain; this bridal superstore’s website now offers wedding planning help, namely how to ‘dress your wedding.’ Just register with the website and you can choose a color scheme to personalize your wedding. You can mix and match the design details to make it uniquely yours and email your favorite creations to friends, or print them out and bring them in for an appointment with one of our bridal consultants. As you may have heard, “You’ll love David’s Bridal!”

Color Scheme Designer doesn’t focus on weddings and eschews additional tools for bridal bliss like a budget calculator, gown selector, guest manager, or vendor list. Even so, their slick palette-picker makes it easy to choose primary colors and accents. Based initially on your primary color selection from a warm/cool color wheel, their advanced interface allows for endless variation.  They’ll give you complementary schemes, secondary color choices, and they’ll preview your colors against a light or dark background.

Many of these color-choosing apps choose to emulate the latest internet juggernaut, Pinterest, in the design of their site. It’s no wonder, because the top-quality usability of the social media newcomer makes it interactive. Not only can you scan through pages and pages of wedding photos and color schemes from thousands of fellow users just by typing “wedding color scheme” into the search bar, you can share your favorites. Pinterest allows you to assemble and re-pin the most inspirational images that represent the kind of wedding you’d like to have, so that you can plan your special day.

Did these sites help you pick your palette? Tell us what you and let us know about any others you find online.

Color training in the arts today is deeply divided between modern and “traditional” color theory. Modern color theory characteristically emphasizes concepts of color space, especially the framework of hue, value and chroma devised by the artist and art teacher Albert Munsell. Additionally, modern color theory incorporates the discoveries by which Helmholtz, Maxwell and Hering revolutionized our fundamental understanding of the nature of color as radically as Darwin transformed our understanding of biology at the same time. In contrast, traditional color theory anachronistically maintains conceptions of color that prevailed before these late 19th-early 20th century revolutions, and its relationship (or lack of relationship) to modern color theory is in some ways like that of so-called “Creation Science” to modern biology.

A defining characteristic of traditional color theory is its adherence to the three historical primary colors, yellow, red and blue, which Albert Munsell railed against a century ago in his book, A Color Notation. In contrast, modern color theory recognizes that there are different primary colors (and different complementary relationships) in different contexts, for example additive primaries, subtractive primaries, and psychological primaries. As I have argued elsewhere, the historical primaries appear to be an unconscious conflation of the four psychological primaries – yellow (Y), blue (B), red (R) and green (G) – and the three subtractive primaries, yellow (Y), magenta (BR) and cyan (GB). By this view, yellow, red and blue are the three names that we applied to our best colorant-mixing primary hues when we first discovered them, before it occurred to us that the optimal hues for colorant mixing might not be the same as the hues we mentally experience as pure and primary. In a sense, the historical primaries are the ancestors of both the modern subtractive primaries and the modern psychological primaries.

Implicit in much traditional color theory is a pre-Newtonian view of color mixing that I have called the intermixture theory. This view rests on the “commonsense” assumptions that colors are physical properties residing in materials, and that these properties themselves mix when we mix paints, so that, for example, the color green is considered to “contain” yellow and blue. In many minds this view exists in quarantine alongside knowledge of Newton and the spectrum, without any apparent awareness of the inconsistency, as it does for example in Johannes Itten’s (1961) The Art of Color. Other versions of traditional color theory adhere to the later (but still obsolete) idea that color mixing depends on shared “impurities” or “biases” in the yellow, red and blue primaries. This 19th century idea has lately been reanimated as the rationale for a “split primary” palette system consisting of warm and cool versions of the three historical primaries. In modern color theory, color mixing in paints is understood to involve a combination of subtractive and additive-averaging processes that result in broadly predictable mixing paths through hue-value-chroma space. For example, mixing paths of yellow and blue paints tend to curve through low chroma greens, not because green “contains” yellow and blue, but because subtractive mixing exposes the substantial green-wavelength reflectance that is an essential component of the color of both yellow and blue paints.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Modern and “Traditional” Color Theory by David Briggs.

The Munsell system correlates to the way the human eye sees color and served as the basis for modern day computerized color matching systems, making it ideal for designers who specify color to manufacturers who use these systems.  One of the Munsell system’s key advantages is the lot-to-lot accuracy of its books of color and individual color standards.  That’s why it’s the system of choice for a wide range of industries and disciplines including Agriculture, Archeology, Education, Environmental Studies, Food Products, Geology, Government Standards, Industrial and Interior Design, Pharmaceutical, Product Development, and Safety.

The Very Definition of Color Theory

The Munsell System has been influential in many of the products we use and the foods we eat.  It also helps ensure the safety of astronauts inhabiting the international space station and reveal issues affecting our environment. Here are a few of the popular applications for Munsell color standards:

• Munsell color communication standards help ensure consistent brand identity and product color standards from toys and tools to consumer packaged goods.  Designers and brand owners use them to visually communicate color to suppliers, who also use the color communication standards to conduct visual color quality control assessments.  Leading brands including Mattel, Black&Decker and Hoover have worked with Munsell to develop color standards that not only represent their ideal color but also acceptable variations of the color to compensate for the limitations of manufacturing processes and raw materials.
• Munsell government standards help the U.S. Department of Agriculture grade and timely harvest produce including olives and tomatoes among others.  And every time you order French fries, thank Munsell for providing the color standard that ensures perfectly cooked fries.
• Munsell environmental color communication standards have been specially developed to help archeologists, botanists, geologists and scientists reveal clues about our environment.  For example soil color near an archeological find helps archeologists identify the time period from which the artifact came.  Geologists use Munsell color charts to help determine a parcel of land’s fitness for use.

Finally, thanks to Albert H. Munsell’s roots as an artist, his color order system also correlates to the popular color wheel still used today.  Each Munsell Book of Color—Glossy, Matte or Nearly Neutrals Collection—enables designers to develop palettes easily and serves as a handy reference for matching color.

Learn more about the Munsell Color System including educational tools and color vision tests.

Going Back to the Basics of Color Analysis

As soon as I read Carole Jackson’s book “Color Me Beautiful” back in High School I was hooked. I became obsessed with analyzing everyone’s “season”, whether in person or on TV. It would be quite a few years before I turned my passion into a successful website. But I continued to color analyze anyone and everyone in the meantime.

The 4 season system of the book worked for me. My red hair, pale ivory skin and green eyes put me perfectly into the “Autumn” category. I thought it was a perfect system. It did indeed work for some; but not everyone. After studying color theory more, it was found that the system was indeed using two of the 3 characteristics that Albert Munsell talked about: Hue and Value. But something was missing and that was Chroma.  Once this element was put into the equation, the 4 seasons expanded into 12. And a newly advanced color analysis system was created. This was the system I was trained on years ago and was using until about a year ago.

Advancing a Color System with Munsell

The system worked for most, but there were still some people who didn’t fit neatly into the 12 seasons.  For example, there were some Winters who clearly had the depth and other characteristics of a Winter (like the color black looking great on them, for example) but the overall clarity and high contrast of the typical Winter seemed too sharp and unflattering. Their chroma was muted, not clear. But a muted Winter? It didn’t make sense.

This is where someone went back to the basics and studied Munsell’s system even further and created an even more advanced color system based on his principles, called the 4×4 Color System®.  That someone was Certified Image Professional Consultant Ferial Youakim, AICI CIP.  Ferial found that there were some gray areas in the 12-season system. Literally! What was missing was the element of gray.

Most people are probably familiar with the terms tints, tones and shades, perhaps first hearing about them in art class. A tint is a color that has white added to it. A tone is a color that has gray added to it. And a shade is a color that has black added to it.

What Ferial discovered was that the 12-season system was missing this Tone element.

Note: Ferial’s discovery didn’t change or alter the existing 12 seasons, other than help understand it better. It did however add one more season to each of the four main seasons.

Overall, in the new system, there are still the main four seasons of Winter, Summer, Spring and Autumn, but each will have four sub-categories that will contain:

1. The purest and most saturated colors for that main season (pure colors)
2. The lightest colors for the main season (tints)
3. The most muted colors of the main season; also middle-intensity level (tones)
4. The deepest colors of the main season (shades)

To create a universal language everyone can understand, she has labeled the following seasons to match its characteristic. For example, each season will either be a

PURE, TINTED, TONED or SHADED SEASON.

The image below shows 4 Winters and how different characteristics might show up in a person.

Note that the Toned Winter (3^rd photo) is a new season that 4×4 Color System identified, the type of person I described above: someone having the depth of a Winter but who’s chroma is more muted than clear.

And here’s some celebrity Winters who illustrate the Pure, Tinted, Toned and Shaded concept: Megan Fox, Alison Brie, Katie Holmes and Kim Kardashian, respectively.

The differences can be very subtle. But to the person who is trying to find their absolute perfect look, knowing their correct season is like when you fine tune an image with binoculars; it might look ok until you adjust things just so and everything is in beautiful focus.

I had the pleasure of training with Ferial awhile back and after having studied the 4×4 system, I now look at person as either pure, tinted, toned or shaded. Despite being a highly advanced system, it actually simplifies Color Analysis and anything that simplifies my job is always a great thing. ~

Hooked on Color Theory

From the very first assignment in my Color Theory class more than ten years ago – sorting out the color chips by hue, value, and chroma in The New Munsell Student Color Set – I was hooked on color.  The following year I attended a conference called, “Seeing Red,” where speakers included John Gage on color in art history, artist Sanford Wurmfeld on his methodical explorations of color in art-making, and psychologist David Brainard on how scientists conduct experiments on color perception.

Color continues to be a subject of ongoing study as it is one of the most important facets of my artwork.  Last summer I attended the three-day “Industrial Short Course” at the Munsell Color Science Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology.  While the course is geared primarily towards those in design and manufacturing who need a scientific and instrumental understanding of color – for instance, how to know whether the color of your product matches the specifications – an artist comfortable with math, science, and technical explanations can learn a lot. I am particularly interested in color appearance models and how to control colors on the computer as well as in paint, so the sessions on color spaces, colorimetry, and perception were particularly enlightening.  I left, wishing I could stay another two weeks, with binders full of notes, a textbook on color, and a head swirling with ideas for experiments to try.

Computer Colors as a Guide

I use the computer to conduct experiments, to help design my paintings, and as a tool to learn about color.  Photoshop lets me try out many different color combinations quickly without wasting paint, while my ColorMunki Design lets me measure my paints to make sure the colors I choose in Photoshop can actually be painted.

I combine my interest in color with my ongoing study of the philosophy of mind to generate the ideas for my artwork.  My abstract acrylic paintings are filled with thousands of hand-painted curves of color.  By carefully designing interactions between the layers, the paintings take on a sense of depth and self-illumination.

“The I in Disguise”, acrylic on canvas, 30×40 inches, 2011

For instance, the background of a piece might transition from a medium value naphthol red (2.5R 5/14) to a deep quinacridone crimson (5R 2/8).  On top of that, my maze-like marks might move in the opposite direction from a dark phthalo blue out of the tube (5PB 3/12) to a tinted but still chromatic version of the same paint (10B 6/10). As these colors interact, various perceptual mechanisms kick in and many people will perceive some portions of the painting as receding deep into the surface even though the painting is nearly completely flat.

My paintings change their appearance depending upon where you stand.  The eyes optically mix the colors from a distance or at an angle, but up close one sees the individual marks and their interactions with the underpainting.  Color assimilation and simultaneous contrast might push colors in different ways in different parts of the painting.  Because shorter wavelengths focus closer than longer ones, our brains can use color as one of many depth cues.  A gradual value change in the marks of the painting may be interpreted as a falloff in light, another signal to help inform the how the mind should piece things together.

“Seeing It Through”, acrylic on canvas, 30×30 inches, 2012

Creating one of my paintings is a little bit like trying to design and then solve a three dimensional puzzle.  Pulling all of these techniques and color interactions together into something that is paintable and aesthetically pleasing is the big challenge and also what makes painting fun!

First, we must consider the average local color of flesh.   Think of the local color as the area unaltered by shadow, halftone, highlight or reflected light.   The local color is an area in the general light… the color that can be matched directly by paint.   To go back to the forehead, imagine a spot of paint placed directly on it that matches perfectly, and you will understand the local.

According to where you are from, your habits and occupation, this may seem to vary substantially.   After all, we can tell each other apart and our coloring has something to do with this.   However, after studying many foreheads, not to mention other parts of the face and body, you will likely see a pattern in the local color of humans.   The fact is that most of us, the vast majority, range in color from 5R to 10 YR, values 2 to 7, and chromas 2 to 6.   To make it even easier, our average local complexion, the areas not influenced by hair, tans or ruddiness, ranges in hue between 2.5YR to 7.5YR , chromas 2 to 4.    Some say everyone averages 5YR, chroma 3.

Matching Flesh Tones in Painting

What does this mean?  Well, the most refreshing thing is that we are not as different as we assume.    Secondly, this makes painting portraits much easier if we simply start within the gamut of flesh colors.

Whether you choose high chroma colorants like cadmium orange and cobalt blue or lower chroma earth pigments like yellow ochre, burnt sienna and ivory black, you will need to address the facts at hand:  flesh occupies a specific area of Munsell color space.   If the values are too light or dark, the chromas too high or low, or the hue too red or too yellow, the results will be less convincing.  So, when in doubt, begin with the local color and work outwards, seeing how subsequent hues, values or chromas differ from the average.

Finally, painting hair well is also critical to portrait painting. . The nice thing about hair is that it is composed of the same colors.  So unless you have a penchant for unnatural dyes such as hot pink, stick with lower chroma reds, yellow-reds and yellows.

Stay tuned for more information on using Munsell for portrait art and tell us your story about how you use color theory to enhance your work.

A peek at those using Munsell in the creative arts:

“Munsell Color is great for matching various colours and determining chroma, value and hue.  It really is a wonderful system.”

“I was taught how to make the Munsell colour wheel by an Artist Painter friend who himself was taught it by an artist at the Royal Academy when he was on the MA course.  Learning the Munsell colour wheel has radically increased my confidence when making models for my jewelry designs, and I have tremendously enjoyed the process.”

“Forty years ago, when I was getting seriously into photography, I walked quite some ways from the office where I had a Summer job to the Munsell company — in Baltimore, of course. I bought the student charts and binder, and carefully glued the chips into the correct spaces — which I had to figure out on my own — learning the difference between value and chroma, which I have never forgotten.” 

“I love his theory on colour. In fact, for years I’ve tried to find a Munsell colour cube to no avail. From pure colour to technics greying the colour out is the most important information for the artist.  Just knowing the value in color is one of the best aspects in selecting a proper tone for a project. Thanks Munsell!”

“I am a student with the Virtual Art Academy and am learning about Munsell.  I am very excited to have found you and hope to learn a great deal using your color system.”

“I’m using it for my assignment for food coloring and I find that your website is quite helpful. Thank You”

“I am using a Munsell Soil-Color Chart to help prepare my students for competing in the Georgia Envirothon competition.  Determining soil hue value and chroma is one of the skills that the students are required to demonstrate in the competition.”

“I am attending a doctorate program about lighting and colour in Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey. I am learning Munsell Colour System details.”

From soil scientists to archaeologists, Munsell is utilized in the field:

“Munsell Color is great for matching various colours and determining chroma, value and hue.  It really is a wonderful system.”

“I am a Science Educator in a Biology department, so I teach science content courses to prospective teachers.  We talk about different forms of data (Quantitative & Qualitative).  I show them how ambiguous names for colors can be and how with the color charts, we have a better way to be more specific.  We mostly use them for soil labs and being in Georgia, we have some wild colored clays.”

“I teach plant color at a University in Iran; my experience on plant color is very exciting for everybody, if I can go to the US, I would like to visit Munsell, and talk color.

“I´m a Wood Engineer specialist for wood industries and we have difficulties identifying species with sawed wood as raw material. I´m beginning to use the Munsell Table to help us be precise and accurate for diagnosis and identification of sawed wood (saw milled raw).”

“I am planning to use a Munsell geological rock-colour chart to determine the correct colour and estimate of beach sand albedo values for loggerhead nesting beaches on the coast of Western Australia. This will allow me to predict nest temperatures and resultant sex ratios of hatchling turtles who exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD).”

“Using color guides produced in the late 90′s and in early 2002 for stamps for Canada. Using Richard Morris Color Guide for Small Queens of Canada and the Pittsboro Philatelics Color Guide, also a Small Queen Guide purchased in late 1990′s.  Both use Munsell Color System chips.”

“I work for a health department and I love the easy use of your website to select colors for my graphic design needs.”

“I am soil surveyor in the irritation department in Myanmar. I study soil color and texture with the help of the Munsell soil color book. Thanks!”

Because we love color too:

“I want color.”

“Color love.”

We are grateful for the stories we’ve already heard, and would love for you to tell us your tale, too!  By sharing your story, you can help inspire others. We can’t wait to hear about how a splash of color has affected you at work, at home, at school, or anywhere else.  If you’ve got a great story to tell about adding color to your life, share it on our blog, send us an email or drop us a line on Facebook or Google+, or tweet us!