What possible use could that dry numerical representation be to an artist?Īs it turns out, quite a bit. These are colours to fire the imagination and feed the soul. It shows the hue, value and chroma of a specific colour, measured objectively.Īs artists we’re used to considerably more romance in the names of our colours, thank you. The first time I saw a colour expressed in Munsell notation I was considerably less than impressed.Īfter all, we artists deal in the fine vibrations of the soul, gentle whispers of the imagination and fugitive moments of inspiration.ĥYR/6/4 looks much more like science than art.Īnd in fact it is. You can’t always rely on first impressions. Since so many artists struggle with colour mixing, I’ll explain a little more about how using Munsell got me those wonderful results. Most importantly, Munsell gives me a practical framework for colour that allows me to systematically mix the colours I want rather playing ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ with paint.Now I can more accurately predict the results of colour mixes based on these actual hues. They show me that raw umber, for example, is not just a dark greeny-brown, it’s actually a low chroma, low value yellow. The colour chips in the Munsell Book of Colour show me the actual hues of my tube paints.I can either pinpoint a colour within the range of my paint, or know when a colour I see is outside the range of my paint and I have to compromise. Munsell shows me the range from dark to light, from grey to high chroma of my paint.The Munsell colour space with its three dimensions of hue, value and chroma fundamentally changed not just how I approach colour practically, but how I conceptualise it. Munsell unlocked my palette by filling the huge gaps in my knowledge of colour. There had to be a better way, and as it turned out, there was.
#Paint tone book palette trial#
If I had a colour in mind that I wanted to mix, the only way to achieve it was through trial and error.
#Paint tone book palette full#
I wasn’t aware of the full range of the colours I could achieve with my paints, so I didn’t know what could and couldn’t be achieved.My palette was locked by my own lack of knowledge about colour. It’s no exaggeration to say that Munsell unlocked my palette. Munsell gave me an objective way to approach colour that freed from colour dogma. My experiments with using Munsell to learn about value in painting completely changed my approach to painting in oils. I was lucky enough to meet the accomplished American allegorical painter Graydon Parrish, who first introduced me to the Munsell approach to colour. After a period away from painting I had returned with renewed enthusiasm and determination. But I struggled on regardless and gradually improved with time.įast forward thirty years. I was twelve, I didn’t know much about anything at all. Munsell Colour Theory to the Rescueīack when I made my first unsuccessful foray into oils, I didn’t know anything about Munsell. In order to match the value of the majority of the colours we see in the world around us with oil paint, large amounts of white must be mixed into the paint in order to lighten it – to raise its value. Value, measured from dark to light, is one of the three dimensions of colour according to Albert Munsell, and arguably the most important one to artists. The main reason for this quite common experience is that most artists’ oil paints are dark straight from the tube, that is, quite low in value. I had just experienced my first scrape with a fundamental problem that many beginning artists face when they try oils: It very quickly became an indiscriminate mess of dark, grey-brown smudges of paint. It was supposed to be a painting of an owl. I remember the disappointment of that first attempt at oil painting as if I’d done it yesterday. I was fascinated, intoxicated as much by the idea of painting in oils as by the smell, eagerly anticipating the wonderful piece of work I was sure to produce.
My Mum had given me some oil paints and I was about to try them out for the first time.Īs I squeezed the paints out of their tubes the distinctive smell of linseed oil and pigment tickled my nose. In this two part series, he talks about how utilizing the three dimensions of colour resulted in mixing a better painting palette. He helps people learn to draw and paint better by sharing effective practice methods on his website Learning to See. Paul Foxton is a self-taught artist who believes that anyone can learn to draw.
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