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How to Describe Color Accurately- The Munsell Color System

Writer's picture: אורי שביט/Uri Shavitאורי שביט/Uri Shavit

Updated: Dec 20, 2024




When You Say Yellow, What Exactly Do You Mean?


You're probably all familiar with the experience of people trying to describe a specific color. Phrases like: "It's kind of a light yellow" or "It's sky blue," etc.


The language we use daily to define color is unclear, and as artists, we need a much better way to define it. Otherwise, we’ll never know exactly what color we mean.


Our human eyes are lazy, and it’s hard for us to see things accurately. It’s a sad fact, but that’s the reality.


People usually define the color of objects based on the color they see up close. For example: "This wall is white," or "I bought a yellow shirt." The truth is, defining color this way is incorrect and completely misleading.


Color depends on the light that falls on it and the colors around it.


A white shirt in a disco under blue light will look like a blue shirt, not white. Light falling on a wall can make it look yellow or gray and usually a collection of many, many colors.


Take a certain color and put it next to a very dark color like black, and it will look much lighter. Put it next to white, and it will look very dark.


Our eyes are lazy and tired.


Here’s a simple exercise to understand how much our brain deceives us.


Sit next to a white wall and place a square that is completely painted red in front of you.


Set a stopwatch and measure one minute.


Look at the red square for a minute without moving your head.


Immediately after that, look at a fixed point on the white wall.


What color do you see?


You see green.


So what happened here? Well, our brain got tired and decided that the red was too strong, so to calm itself, it went to the complementary color (the complementary color of red is green) and decided that we now see green instead.


This is what happens when we look at our model for a long time. We paint what we think we see, and after a rest, we don't understand why the colors we put are so strange and incorrect.


So? What do we do? How do we use a language that clearly defines what color we’re talking about?


Defining Color According to the Munsell System


According to the Munsell Color System, color is defined by three components:

The Munsell Color System
The Munsell Color System

– Value


– Hue


– Chroma (or Intensity or Saturation)


The middle column defines the values (Value) from 0 to 10, where 0 is the darkest value and 10 is the lightest value.


The circle around it defines the hue (yellow, red, etc.).


The triangle defines the intensity or chroma of that value and hue.


Now, it's easy to say something like: red with a value of 5 and an intensity of 8.


And we all know exactly what color we are referring to.


On your color palette, mix the 10 value levels (Values). This is a very important exercise and not as easy as you might think.


Color Table using the Munsell System
Color Table using the Munsell System


Then take a specific color, say red from the tube, and put a small drop (smaller than a pea) under each gray value you prepared.


Mix the red with a bit of the gray of the same value and do this for all the values.


Notice how the value of the color remains but the intensity of the color changes according to the amount of gray you added in that value. More gray? Less intensity for the color. Less gray? More intensity for the color.


In color theory, there is also the color wheel, which is actually the pigment wheel (or Hue), known to everyone, and it actually defines relationships between colors.


I hope this helps you and makes it easier for you to understand and mix colors correctly.


Watch the video below for a full demonstration of the Munsell Color System




Additional Topics Worth Reading:


- Why it’s Important to Understand Anatomy in Portrait Painting

- How to Prepare the Canvas for Oil Painting

- The Difference Between Oil Paints and Pastel Paints


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Guest
Jul 06, 2024
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.

Finally I can understand that system! Many thanks 🙏

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