Lesson 1 - Part 1 Hue This Lesson is about the first Pillar of Color, hue. We are going to warm up with an exercise from your Camp Chroma Course Kit. This is what you will need to pull out of the kit: The Hue Value/Chroma Chart, Hue Value/Chroma Exercise Tiles and 10 Glue Dots. The method throughout Camp Chroma is to take things one step at a time, so we re only focusing on the hue portion of this chart in this Lesson which means you only need to cut out the ten hue family tiles. However, if you want to go ahead and cut out all of the tiles on this page at once, that s fine. I recommend getting a Ziploc baggie to store the extra tiles until it s time to affix them to the chart. What I would like you to do is arrange the chips like you see in this picture. When you re ready to affix the tiles to your chart, grab your Glue Dots. Here s how I work with the Glue Dots. Take the paper backing off the Glue Dot leaving just the clear plastic and dot. Line the dot up with the circle inside the squares on the chart and stick the dot to the chart, press down firmly to really stick the dot to the paper. Carefully peel the plastic off the dot Then carefully line the hue tile up and press it on to the chart. Repeat this process for all ten hue family tiles. This might seem like a lot of arts and crafts busy work but I believe your hands-on, tactile interaction with the colors makes for a better learning experience; it helps you understand the concepts quicker and remember what you learned. In the last video, you were introduced to the three-dimensional Munsell Color Order System. This worksheet deconstructs the Munsell color space into a two-dimensional view so you have another perspective to see how hue, value and chroma fit together. The Value and Chroma part is especially helpful. Hue is kind of hanging out there all by itself from your worksheet perspective but as you already know from the last video, hue in the three-dimensional space is the outer rim of the
Munsell Color Tree but this exercise does give you an idea of what the hue parents look like. Again, we re only going to compete the hue portion of the chart right now. We ll do value and chroma in later Lessons. Defining color terms, like hue, is somewhat ambiguous because a lot depends on application. What I mean by that is a color scientist will have a more exacting idea of hue compared to a fine artist, for example. The definition of hue is something everyone thinks they have an intuitive handle on until one starts to really think about it - like what *is* the difference between hue and color and can you use the terms interchangeably? The answer is no; you shouldn't use hue and color interchangeably because you need to segregate hue parents from child colors in order for the categorization of color by hue family to make sense and work. When you identify full chroma hue parents, like the ten in the exercise for this lesson, you have a framework to organize every other color that isn't as strong in chroma. You have a place to put colors of whites and grays. You have a place for pastels, muted colors, near neutrals - every kind of color you can think of belongs to a hue family. Not only do hue families give you a way to organize color that makes sense, but you also have an objective way to explain why a color looks the way it looks. You can trace a color back to its roots using its spectral DNA. And THAT is a big deal. Here's why. Colors of gray are a good example. How many times have you had a paint chip in your hand that looked "gray" but you didn't know how to describe what kind of gray. Under certain light sources it might look "just gray"... with no discernible hue whatsoever yet at other times when you glance at the chip you swear you can see green, blue, purple or even pink. This is something many have no idea how to explain but that doesn't stop them from trying. Because we humans find comfort in being able to explain and understand the things in our environments. It makes us feel more in control of what's going on around us. Color is no exception.
In an effort to gain some control over color, many theories have been offered by many different people since time immemorial. This is where color theories like the following come from: the whole identifying color by "undertones" thing the idea that you know the colorants in the formula you can predict how a color will look and there's the method of using the arranged order of strips of color in a fandeck as a guide to map out certain color characteristics like "undertones" and lightness/darkness. From a Color Strategist's perspective, a balanced approach to defining hue and color is the most useful. By balanced I mean a definition of hue and color based on physics, physiology, and artistry So, here's the answer to the million-dollar question, "what IS the best way for a Color Strategist to define hue?" I m going to tell you how I like to differentiate hue and color I ve found this is most useful way to think about it considering my everyday workflow. Hue has only one dimension and it's defined by wavelength in the visible spectrum. When you use a device like your Color Muse to measure a color, it's the dominant wavelength in the data that the device captures that determines hue. This is where the comparison of spectral data to a fingerprint or DNA comes from. Understanding how hue is determined clarifies those analogies, doesn't it? It's our vision system that then translates the different wavelengths of energy into categories that we've learned to label as red, yellow, green, blue, etc. In color order systems like Munsell, those categories are called hue parents, as you learned in your first exercise that we just completed. Color, on the other hand, has three dimensions. One of those dimensions is hue. And, of course, as you know by now, the other two are value and chroma.
Hue signifies a color's position within a specific range of the visible spectrum. When a set of colors partially match each other because of their wavelengths of energy, it's called a hue family. Just like any other kind of family, hue parents and child colors share the same DNA. How Hue Family Differs from Undertone Let s talk about how hue family differs from undertones. We have to have a conversation about undertones because many confuse the two... undertones and hue family. The biggest difference between the two is undertones are about density and they don't come from color measurements. In other words, undertone is NOT derived from a color's DNA. Let me explain density -- undertones are revealed when color is spread in a thin layer so you can see the surface below. What makes an undertone an undertone, is light is able to travel through the thin layer of color, hit the surface below and bounce back up through the color --again-- creating a unique color experience for your eyeballs. Architectural paints are applied in a level, opaque film thickness. So, if you don't have layers, if there's no variation in density of the paint film, there's no opportunity for the effect of undertone to occur. The ONE exception is decorative finishes. Decorative artists rely on the effects of undertone that they get by manipulating different mediums. So, undertone is a very important term and concept of color. People regularly misuse the word undertone in an effort to explain every degree of discernible hue that they see but don't understand; they don't understand where that sensation of hue is coming from or where it goes when the light changes. When non color experts misuse the term undertone, it's really not a big deal for us. Because we understand what it is they're trying to communicate. But as color professionals, you really do need to clearly understand where undertones belong in the hierarchy of our vision system's process of sensing color. Because we need a way to describe and categorize the unique color
experience that's created when light DOES travel through a layer of color and bounces back up off of the surface below. And then there's the issue of individual color acuity, the fact that we all perceive color in our own special way. So, let me tell you why this is also a big deal --- when the theory of color undertones is applied in such a manner that undertone is intended to be an absolute definition of a color instead of an individual's narrative of a personal color experience, that's a problem. Because everyone perceives color differently. Some people may agree with the undertone designation someone else has assigned to a color... but many will not. Undertones are 100% subjective opinion. Whereas hue family is objective because of the way it's derived from a color's DNA. That's a lot to think about, so I'll give you a minute. Okay, so moving on to the last issue that you will run into if you don't define the two terms, hue family and undertones, correctly. This one can be summed like this... Change the Light You Change the Color (read it and add graphic) If you subjectively assign an absolute undertone to a color, then there is no way to explain what happens to that color in different qualities of light. There is no way to qualify where that absolute undertone disappears to when the light shifts. And if you can't explain it, you can't manage it! This is another example of why you need to categorize color by hue family. If you know what hue family a color belongs to, then you are able to strategically manage how color looks in a space. Hue family is the tool you need to figure out the perfect paint colors to partner with the inherent light sources you have to work with. So, those are all the reasons why it's so important to properly define hue, hue family and undertones, and why you have to be very careful to differentiate between them.
In the next part of this Lesson, I'm going to teach you two ways to find out what hue family a color belongs to. The first way to find hue family for a color uses technology and color measurements. The second approach uses big chips of hue family parents. We'll be doing some exercises using your Color Muse so make sure it's charged up and ready to go!