Lemon Ochre Study

A while ago I mixed black or white with lemon ochre to line up in value with Munsell neutrals. Well, that got me thinking about lemons, so I've been carrying a couple around, studying their contained shadows in different lights and angles. I realized that I couldn't accurately portray the shadows only by lowering value--there was simply too much chroma in those low values.

This evening I mixed a fresh batch of each lemon ochre value and then began mixing pretubed Munsell neutrals with corresponding value. See the two piles to the right, how close they are in value.

Here's an example of the chroma range in a light value.

And here is the final study, each highest chroma possible value progressively sliding towards neutral.

Already I can see that the shadows are lining up nicely with a lower chroma. Now I am wondering how many values I could premix to cover a lemon's colors. Fascinating stuff...

I want to complete this study with red and green earths too. I'm imagining all the possible colors without even mixing paints...