Albert H.Munsell and Johannes Itten

My road to “color mapping”…..

I recently posted an article answering the question of “Why I work the way I do” and by the end of the posting I offered to explain my “color mapping” process. I call it color mapping basically because I pick out my colors for an upcoming painting by choosing color chips from the Munsell book of color and then figuring out which tubes of paints will be needed to mix the desired colors. So just like a map theses choices show what colors I plan to use but once I get down to actually applying the paint I will need to adjust and tweak them as necessary because the map is never like the actual terrain.

So as I mentioned in the posting “Why I work the way I do” my professor in college Durwood Dommisse introduced me to Albert Munsell and Johannes Itten which down the years has lead me to many other tidbits of knowledge and stirred me to using the brand paint that I do today, Gamblin paints.

Three books that are at the base of my color theory knowledge are “A Color Notation” by Albert H. Munsell, “The Art of Color” by Johannes Itten and “Blue and Yellow Don’t make Green” by Michael Wilcox. There are many other books that I have read, pursued, briefly looked at and sometimes returned to the bookstore in a hurry.

Color adds a whole dimension to the creative process which I found very daunting when I first began but I hope that in this series of postings that I will successfully articulate my insight on color and my process of “color mapping.”