Spiraling Through Color

Brown, S. (2017)

Explorations: The Texas A&M Undergraduate Journal

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K4DCHGPSFFb7zqof8kI4_ardJBabCHYM/view

People are surrounded by color every day and often do not give it much thought beyond the color wheel. With 12 main hues, or color families, that lie perfectly spaced in an organized circular form, the color wheel introduces the concept of color harmony. For example, hues that are opposite from one another on the color wheel are “complementary,” and three evenly separated hues (such as red, blue, and yellow) create a “triadic” harmony. However, colors have properties besides hue alone, including color value (how dark or light a color is) and color chroma (more commonly known as saturation, or the intensity of the color). Color scholar Albert Munsell theorized those three properties as multidimensional spirals that spin through all colors as a three-dimensional color solid, or color model.1 By doing so, Munsell created color harmonies that no one had seen before. Focused on hue, value, and chroma working together, I similarly visualized previously unexplored color harmonies by creating a computer program that generates palettes using formulas that model those spirals inside Munsell’s three-dimensional color solid. These color solids essentially become multidimensional systems used to organize color by its properties.