Quick Tip 418 - Munsell versus Traditional
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- čas přidán 20. 07. 2024
- Artist/art teacher Dianne Mize answers the question on the pros and cons of these different color wheels.
www.diannemize.com
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This was an excellent explanation and analysis of this subject. I lean towards the artists ability/creativity to interpret colors the way each sees them for themselves, as we all interpret what we see differently. Thank you.
Well said, Ginger. May I add, individuals will see colors differently, so knowing what color does to color guarantees the individual to interpret that.
Terrific explanation, Dianne. Thank you! Forty years of fascination with colour theory and I can still appreciate a good lesson.
Wonderful!
Colour Science is my hobby ;)
As you pointed out the problem is colour is 3 dimensional. I think every artist should have a Munsell Color Tree which shows the 3d relationship of colour. Unfortunately they are very expensive, around $500, because they guarantee very high colour accuracy. A cheap version would be a great tool.
Also Golden Acrylics has the Munsell code on their paint tubes.
Yep! But we do have a free version that, when used to its fullest potential, will yield the same degree of accuracy as the Munsell color tree--learn what color does to color using the traditional wheel. The thought process is similar to Munsell's without the numbers and notations - what hue does to hue to yield another hue and the saturation of that hue, and the full value range of whatever combination we are finding.
When I first started painting I came into contact with the Munsells system. I was intrigued and overwhelmed.
I love the simplicity of the traditional color wheel. Once math comes into the subject of art it shuts down the creativity and fun for me. 😊
That's why I love your take in always calling on us to first observe what we see. And yes there is still skill, technique and abilities but not so much an equation.
Thank you for a great overview, I love your teaching!
Thanks, Debra.
I see you ran into the book where math was trying to be used unsuccessfully to reach notated colors via fractional formula’s.
This isn't math for the artist, the numbers are simply a certain point in a 3d color understanding. Its like street maps that had the ol number and letters and you'd find the street along E3 say, only here there are three points; Hue Value Saturation.
It is fundamentally a concept for getting to the color (made of those three points) in your head firt and then it's easier to mix since you know where you're going. It has the benefit of not needing specific primaries since the destination is the same you can take different routes. Some munsell painters use it very efficiently and don't put out every color around the wheel at once but only the ones that'll get them to where they need for the days painting. That's maybe more advanced methodology but it gives you that option.
edit: I kind of want to expand on that, the numbers could be replaced by a different series, say the greek alphabet or, 'do ray me fa so la ti doh', they're just a way of using an integer system to follow up vs down. He used numbers though and it makes sense, we've even created higher saturated pigments since his time and so the chart has expanded accordingly.
Wow! That lesson was very instructive. While I like the logical breakdown of the Munsell color chart if this were the only system in use I'd be running for the hills screaming being an intuitive painter! Very clear and excellent teaching. Thank you Dianne!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I agree the traditional system will be more user-friendly in artistic practice.
I appreciate your explanation of this and I'm glad to know this information.
Thanks for watching, Paul.
I don’t think the results between the two color wheels are the same because Munsell’s has an advantage of using 5 primary colors over 3. The purples and greens will be richer with Munsell’s. The traditional 3 color primary wheel is misleading because it’s so simplistic and idealistic. Rich secondary colors aren’t achievable with the 3 primary colors like the diagrams mislead people to believe. To actually go around the traditional color wheel and achieve those colors, you’ll need more than 3 primary colors. It’s important to note too that paint isn’t made from light (or some kind of pure substance) so that’s an important distinction between both systems. However with all that said, I don’t really like either either wheel. It’s best to make your own with the supplies you have and work within that reality.
Welcome aboard, Miles!
Tim, I favor what I call the informed intuitive approach to color. If we take the definition of "primary" to mean the single basic ingredient, then I don't see how two secondaries can also be primaries. In my way of thinking, hydrogen and oxygen each are primaries to the secondary, water, in the H2/O proportion. The primary hues blue, red and yellow cannot be mixed from other hues, yet green or cyan or magenta each ARE mixtures.
I agree it is important to distinguish tube colors (pigments) from other sources of color, but if we train ourselves to recognize HUES as they register between their tertiary neighbors on the traditional wheel, we can accurately mix any color we need by training ourselves to see what color does to color. That's what I mean by informative intuition.
Thank you great job 👍
Our pleasure and thanks.
Thank you so much for this explanation. It’s so complicated to me but then I was never any good at maths. I’m happy that I now understand.
My pleasure, Anne. From my viewpoint, an artist shouldn't need to do math to paint.
Great video Diane! I didn't know it's called Munsell's colorwheel, i was so familiar with it because I started with digital paint like photoshop. However it was very confusing so I switched to oil paint to understand better color theory and I was so mind blown on how simple the colors were with traditional color wheel. Since then i never looked back and been doing oil paint for almost 5 years now.
Yep, the Munsell system works great within computer language.
You’re such a good teacher of color theory!
Here’s a topic I’d love to see covered in a quick tip: How do you chose the best color for a still-life background? Do you make a neutral from all the colors in the subject?
Thank you
Sharon, see Quick Tip 148.
Such an interesting and well taught lesson. Thank you so much 🤗🙏🧡
You are so welcome
Wow! Dianne I'm waiting for this since long time... thank you 🙏
You're welcome 😊
Always a great way to understand mixed, funcion and useful of color. Thank you dear
My pleasure. Thanks for watching.
Fascinating! Thanks, Dianne!
You are so welcome, Maryellen!
Thanks again Dianne, I think that I will stick with the traditional colour wheel.
Wise...
You always have a golden nugget to share!
Thanks, Lesley!
Yes, Munsell system is used for notation of color. Traditional color wheel makes more sense for pigment colors or paint mixtures and complementary theory for painting as munsell circle is meant to show a kind of visual complement tested with spinning wheel device thing he used you know 😮 that is a wheel with complements when spinning appears neutral gray…
The Munsell system is highly useful to industry for that very reason.
Thank you for that description!
You bet!
Thank you for a really interesting and informative quick tip, clarifying the difference between the two colour wheels makes the artists journey most interesting, however I think I shall stick to the intuitive colour wheel 😘 I love your quick tips Dianne!
It's a fun journey, isn't it.
I mostly favor traditional, but jump back and forth a little. One great combination that I find useful for easily creating the neutral gray for pavement, sidewalks, grayish sand is a mix of quinacridone red or rose plus yellow ochre plus thalo green or viridian green (recommended to me by a noted plein air landscape painter). Thanks for the video, Dianne.
Keep enjoying the journey. Thanks for watching.
Very informative. Thank you.
My pleasure.
Great instructions, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank for this; it does seem pretty complicated! However, it reminds me a bit of Richard Schmid's color chart exercises in Alla Prima I. I know he was not trying to come up with a new system like Munsell, but I wondered if you might at some point do a Quick Tip on the benefits of creating color charts the way he did. It seems like his palette was fairly stable. My palette is generally a mess of whatever color mixtures I think I'm looking at, so is it possible to really stick with a fixed palette, anyway? Sorry. Too many thoughts here, but I'd love to see a Quick Tip on Schmid's color charts and whether you think we might benefit from doing them.
Look for this Tip to come out in August.
@@IntheStudioArtInstruction That would be WONDERFUL! Thank you. 🙂
Excellent - thank you
Thanks, Jennifer.
Great explanation!
Thanks!
When I started out it threw me off when pigments that were mixed they didn't turn out the color expected on the wheel. I think it's important to know that pigments have chemical properties and chemical reactions with other pigments which change the expected results. For instance to acquire a full chroma purple with Blue and Red is difficult because of the pigment and not the fact that mixing blue and red make purple. So if it's not matching color theory it's due to the pigments not any fault of the theory.
That discrepancy is due to the nature of pigments vs the nature of the spectrum. Really, there is no fault here because theory is only a guide, not the gospel.
If anyone would like to make their own Munsell color wheel, Neilson Carlin has a great tutorial series on you tube he did during the pandemic.
Thanks for that info, Sharon.
I’m a bit confused. Are not all the colors on both Munsell and RYB the same? The only difference I see is how it’s divided up. I recently made a Munsell type color wheel with my Gambling oil paint (they have a chart for Munsell and Lab values). This has been a great help. Worth the time to make. It dose take a while.
Jim, it's not the colors, but how they are arranged on the color wheel. Munsell's approach is more mathematical and logical whereas the traditional approach is visual and intuitive.
Munsells system seems to me to be overkill on a biblical scale,though I've no doubt it has it's benefits.Maths is my kryptonite so maybe that's why it has no interest for me. Thanks Dianne, looking forward to your edges video.
There really isn’t math…just charting code. It’s not over kill but better and highly useful.
Munsell's system works great for the more scientific mind. The traditional system works great for the more intuitive mind. A balance of both doesn't hurt.
Great explanation Diane. I think each system has it's uses. Neither wheel is perfect in putting colours opposite their complements. In the traditional colour wheel, yellow and violet invariably make brown, not a neutral grey. Most colours in the Minsell system are close enough to opposite to their complements to neutralise but it's a bit annoying that he doesn't recognise the ability of colours to neutralise each other without the need for greys. If he could have incorporated that, it would have been really useful.
@Watercolor Newbies, my experience is that if you select a yellow and a violet that neither lean towards their tertiary neighbors AND if you value-correct the violet before mixing, they will indeed create a neutral gray.
I don't think "close enough" cuts it. I think it's best to recognize relationships of hue to hue and which bias any visible hue might have. All it requires is visual training which one can do with practice. Seems to me that knowing is better than having to go by a chart. But then, keep in mind, I favor a more informed intuitive approach to painting.
Good information.
Thanks
It seams also ( and for many painters very significantly) the Munsel system aims at the correct value for the purest chroma not pure saturation knowing the distinction is important for realism. Many assume they are the same but munsel knew otherwise.
Munsell's system works fine for graphic arts, but the freedom of not having to remember formulas and understand what color does to color according to what the light source is doing gives the painter a deeper understanding of color and an unlimited potential for how color can work in expressing their paintings.
I learned how to thing about colour applied to physical pigments with Dianne's method, but I like to organize my palette like Reilly. "Why split these states, where there could be only one? "
Munsell can be used intuitively if you just use the colors at the number five, once you've learned it.
But the traditional wheel is more accurate.
Hi Dianne. Are you able to show how to create a misty effect please. I enjoy your instructions very mush. Thank you. 😊
Elaine, the misty effect can technically be created using the same approach as creating fog. See Quick Tip 133.
Gracias
Thanks for watching.
Get a dark by mixing in the darker complement. Did I get that right? Around 20 min.
Either that or a dark tube version of the same color--that is if it's only the value you're changing.
@@IntheStudioArtInstruction thank you!
Thank you Diane another clear examination of our options, as you said at the start Munsell is more indepth and you would try to explain in layman's language! sadly people love to challenge others and maybe somewhat critical and even undermine. which i have no time for at all 😅 i think they forget the purpose of your videos and stay off the keyboard 😂 thanks again
It's a characteristic of a segment of human behavior, Trish.
I don't know what my Ancestor was thinking
I keep searching for relatives and keep on finding Colour Wheels
I don't know what mine were thinking either, but I do know what a campfire does as it is cooling down, and I don't think the simple nature of the color of campfires has changed since the Stone Age.
🤗🤗😍😍
Thanks.
I liking Munsell System.
But is because I make digital art and the software generate for me all the tones .
The Munsell System works well for digital art.
Which tube color is the "true blue" "true yellow" and "true red"
None and all
Dianne, that is debatable. Some folks claim that cobalt blue is closest to true blue, cad yellow light, closest to yellow and napthol red, closest to red. But much depends upon the manufacturer. Some companies have formulated spectrum colors, but even they vary.
Hi Diane. Thanks for your informative video, and for drawing the Munsell system to the attention of other artists and other people interested in colour. As usual with you it’s a very good presentation, but I’m afraid I have to disagree with your assertion of the equal accuracy and efficacy of the traditional and Munsell systems. Munsell is not only superior ’scientifically. It is superior from observation and practice too!
To begin with what you describe as the traditional colour wheel in the video isn’t quite the traditional colour wheel. It’s been gerrymandered in places to try to make it work as well as the Munsell wheel.
For example, in what has been labelled as the ‘traditional colour wheel’ in this video it does not place mid yellow and mid blue opposite each other. It has mid yellow at 12 o’clock and mid blue at 5 o’clock. Instead it places a purple blue opposite the mid yellow.
However, the green and red opposite each other at 2 o’clock and 8 o’clock in the traditional colour wheel are the traditional red and green which in the Munsell wheel are not opposite each other. In the Munsell wheel red is opposite blue-green and red-purple is opposite green.
Pigment colours that are opposite each other in an accurate and practically useful colour wheel should be complementary colours which therefore mix to a neutral grey. If you mix what are called complementaries in the actual traditional colour wheel in any proportion this usually does not happen. If pigments are mixed even in balanced proportion relative to their saturations yellow and blue make green, red and green make brown, and yellow and violet make brown too. Brown is warm, not neutral.
However, if you mix Munsell complementaries together in the correct proportion you will always get grey.
It seems to me that Munsell supersedes the traditional colour wheel hands down and the traditional colour wheel is rather like the Emperor’s New Clothes in the story, in which people are either too scared or too respectful to challenge traditional authority to say that it does not correspond to what they see with their own eyes, or they have convinced themselves that the Emperor really isn’t naked!
Thanks again for the video.
Thanks for reading this to anyone who does.
(P.S. I have omitted reference to the difference between subtractive mixing of pigments and additive mixing of lights so as not to muddy or distract from my point as these are essentially colour wheels for subtractive-mixers of pigment).
Thanks for your extensive discussion, John. I'd like to make a couple of points for clarity: (1) When I say traditional, I don't mean original. I mean the wheel that has true complements opposite each other. Newton's wheel is not the traditional wheel. (2) There is a distinct difference between the actual mixing of pigments as their hues register on the wheel vs. the RGB and CYM technology. Advocates of the Munsell system, being accustomed to thinking with the ten basic hues idea, from my viewpoint, are working theoretically. But the actual pigment mixing using the 12-hue system where true complements are opposite on the wheel is a more organic system. Knowing what hue does to hue at the various value levels, in my experience, allows for more freedom and flexibility when painting.
Dianne and John, spurred by your exchange, I put together something that may have some interest to you.
Purpose: Mix 5.0 Y with 5.0 PB (directly opposite in the Munsell wheel) to see if yellow moves towards lower chromas and values while maintaining the character of yellow, if not the same hue.
Conclusions:
1. 5.0 PB produces glaring greens as it enters 5.0 Y, even at minimum concentrations of PB.
2. Visually, 5.0 Y next to 5.0 PB gives the powerful contrast expected of true complementary colors, therefore my understanding of the Munsell system is that it is a VISUAL explanation of how we see color, not a system that can be used to mix complementary pigments.
3. By playing with 5.0 Y, Dioxazine Purple 2.5 P, plus cadmium red, titanium white, and ivory black I have been able to produce charts that randomly hit the patches in the Munsell 5.0 Y page. It would be very interesting if the Munsell company would share the “recipe” of pigments for its pages of hues.
4. For my personal purposes, Munsell is foundational in the concept of Value, however, the book of hues is, up to this point, just educational information that contributes to my understanding of color.
Other notes:
5.0 PB may be approximated by Cerulean Blue 3.29 PB, or mixing Phalo Blue 9.03 PB with Brilliant Blue 7.91 B, or other combinations of two colors on either side of 5.0 PB.
5.0 Y may be approximated with direct Yellow Medium Azo 6.55 Y, or mixing of Yellow Medium Azo 6.55 Y with Cadmium Yellow Medium Azo 2.11 Y, or with other combinations of two colors on either side of 5.0 Y.
Literature of products can be very inconsistent, probably due to simple errors. I have found Liquitex dioxazine purple with 9.44 R and 5.6 P (both are wrong in my Munsell book), while Golden of the same color has a 2.5 P, which nicely matches the book.
This is one of those, where you either prefer a straight cut or a punch cut. Or a jug or a pint. Because either way, you're still smoking that cigar or drinking that beer through a circle.
One thing I've never understood though is why they cut a circle shaped pizza into triangles and put it in a square shaped box. It's just silly.
It's a matter of taste. A square piece will taste slightly salter than a wedge shaped piece.
The cut doesn't change the taste of pizza. Nor does the method change the results of color. For color, it comes down to what color does to color.
I beg to differ? At 4:00, you say there are no difference between "Violet" and "Purple": have ever looked at a sample of each color, side by side?
Regardless of what Munsell said about "Purple", to me, it is visually on the "Reddish" side whereas "Violet" is on the "Bluish" side.
Color is so interesting. Thank you for sharing this video.
I appreciate your comment, but "violet" and "purple" are just labels that neither have an exact hue registration. Both can vary in hue between red and blue. Isn't it best to think of color more organically?
To me, purple pushes toward the blue range while violet pushes to the red. But Diane is right--a rose by any other name. Whatever works for you, I guess.
It's not math in any sense, the numbers could be replaced by a different series, say the greek alphabet or, 'do ray me fa so la ti doh', they're just a way of using an integer system to follow up vs down. He used numbers though and it makes sense, we've even created higher saturated pigments since his time and so the chart has expanded accordingly. I will admit, his aversion to using orange is annoying.
Add to that as well--we must make distinctions according to how a color is made--whether with light, or pigments, or computer technology, etc. A hue is a hue is a hue no matter how it is generated.
How does Munsell define "primary"? In a traditional (or even modern RGB or CMY) system, a primary is a color that can't be made by combining other colors. So purple (in any case) and green (with pigments) are not primaries in that sense. Why does he consider them primaries?
It's also weird that he effectively and artificially compacts the red and yellow colors and expands the blue. It seems like this was done just to come up with a notation that is in multiples of 10.
EVEN in all the “primary” systems the definition of “primary” is used in two senses. 1. “Primaries” can be ANY well chosen Triadic “firsts” that can represent mixes in all hues-the gamut of which is based on whatever factors needed bound in whichever system is being used. Thus any three Triadic colors can be used as “primitives”. In short, all “primitives” are arbitrarily well chosen optimal’s within a specific system. 2. “Primary” in the second sense is a set of “starting primitive colors” (not hues) that CANNOT be mixed back to from any other mix created by THOSE “primitive colors”.
In the Traditional system-which always changed over time-is based on the science of it’s days mixed with traditions (right or wrong) and kept overly simplified. Yet, even in modern day color theory, based on more accurate knowledge, we can only base on human experience via the modern RGB model which is based on physics, physiology and psychology. That is to say the effects of light and material objects interactions as light is refracted, absorbed and reflected (all waves are of themselves thus “primary” and don’t mix), then eventually reflected into the human eye (this is where LMS “primitives” come in and are correlated to the high stimulation of 3 color cones referred to and very simplified as RGB) and sent as electrical energy signals to the visual cortex of the brain where the Mind “see’s” as “color”. Even this system is kept as simple as possible and no 3D model can tell the whole theory.
In artists paints, there are “primitives” of specific hues that cannot be replicated by mixing. Thus, at any given time, there is and can be more than 3 “primitives”. And it is well known that the closer two “primitives” are and provided they are not actually directly complementary (actual complements live all over the color space and NOT directly aligned), they make more chromatic mixes than when further apart. In this case, “purple” can indeed be a necessary “primitive”, and indeed it is in a couple of single pigment paints to yield the larger gamut.
Not even CMYK actually follows it’s own theoretical model to the letter because it cannot do so given it’s own specific bounds. Thus it’s “primitives” are not the actual models “primitives” AND they use more than 3 of them in even their cheapest system. 5 “primitives” in fact, if we ignore many other “primitives” at work simultaneously
Sorry…there is the third sense of “primitive” paints: whether or not you “can” replicate it’s hue and perhaps match exactly it’s “color”, whenever you use an unmixed single pigment paint as a starter “convenience “ paint, it becomes a “primitive” itself. Also, it is highly doubtful you can match all of it’s properties.
You had also mentioned that Munsell “compacts the red and yellow colors and expands the blue”. You will notice that our available pigments compose limitations (and color does not actually conform to any nice equal geometric shape anyway in truth-equality of color does not exist between theoretical conceptual theory and actual subtractive material substance uncertainties and material metamerism in colorant types and their models and is actually different between creature to creature and among person to person as well. The scientists and colorant engineers always say, “If you want to know what actual color you’re gonna get-you must go out and mix it to find out.”) and in truth when mapped out, the yellow shifts out of hue very noticeably and very quickly. Reds are compacted and much closer as well. Violets, blues and greens however consume a broader range in the CIECAM measuring system. Munsell’s Visual Hue angles are off a tad to modern measuring Spectral systems but is vindicated.
I do however, love many simplified models as working compasses. Take the Traditional RYB “primitive” system…when I’m in a hurry for a general chroma reduction toward neutral I will use it’s over simplified complementary system to do it. But, when I’m looking at getting a specific color more seriously I use Munsell and other Atelier Traditional neutral grays at specific values and avoid problematic hue shifts and expensive paint waist. By the way, the “multiples of 10” was brilliant. It provided a system of infinite color filing “like” the dewy decimal system for literature. Understanding your “color” and it’s 3 main attributes and where it “lives” in one’s color system and the various ways of getting it is quite an important thing. Well worth knowing for future dividends.
The ONLY “primitives” with your definition are called the “divine” “primitives”. We have no idea what those are…only the Divine knows them.
000000 black , ffffff white , Hexadecimal :)
Working with pigments, we need only to observe what color does to color.
Why munsell added black or white to change the value...which is rarely used nowadays...we usually add complementary hues to change the value?
Munsell is not concerned with mixing colours, it is a system to categorize colours.
The Munsell system is categorically repeatable (ie dependable for artists) and it's actually how our eyes work, when there is less light we can't use our cones which perceive color we use our rods (and we have way more rods btw) which perceive value (monochrome.) Also, many high level artists use the Munsell color system to paint with today, but the "complement" teachers are much more vocal about their approach.
@@omnesilere Isn't munsell chart or theory is more complex and difficult compared to traditional colour wheel? As Dianne says ... simplify your workflow is important.
Sunjanith, I agree with omnesilere that the Munsell system is categorically repeatable, but so is my system when the artist learns to visually read and produce what hue does to hue in its various values.
Let's be honest, it's hard to be the FIRST one to COMMENT in her videos.
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