The color system I’ve adopted was originally developed at the turn of the last century (1900) by the artist/theorist Alfred Munsell. Munsell postulated what he called a theory of beauty centered around color. He took an approach using some familiar ideas and went in a new direction with them. Using the idea that intense colors advance and dull colors recede, he progressed to the notion that in any given area, less intense color was needed to balance a greater amount of dull color. He applied this same theory to both light and dark colors. Assigning a numeric value to each intensity and color value, he developed a mathematical formula to determine how much of any given color is required to balance any other color or group of colors. And each of those colors could in turn be calculated for the appropriate area.
This may sound very elaborate, however, upon trial and investigation, I found that following his system produced a painting with evenly modulated color to color and value to value. The initial overall effect seemed strangely dated and grayed back even though there were bright colors in small amounts, in the painting. As a solution, I found that if I used his system for most of the painting and then departed from his formula for one dissident color, that color took on great intensity and impact in contrast to the other colors in the painting. This dissident color I call the Kicker.
The colors selected in order are: dull light purple/blue, medium dull yellow, medium bright blue/green, and intense bright red. Hereafter referred to as: PB, Y, BG, and R. Four colors progress around the color wheel from dull to intense. Dull can be either dark or light. In this case, dull light PB is a light color. The next color, Y is opposite the color wheel from PB and is somewhat more intense than PB. The next color, BG is several steps around the color wheel and is again even more intense than Y. The next color is R and is the most intense color in the painting. This is the Kicker and it is opposite BG on the color wheel...

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