Jesse Waugh's Munsell Neutral Gray Value Set composed of Williamsburg Oil Munsell-matched oil paints and Michael Harding oil paints

I just received my custom N3, N7 & N9 Munsell-matched Neutral Gray oil paints from Williamsburg Oil Paint - the oil paint arm of New York's GOLDEN paint company - famous worldwide for their acrylic paints.

The ten-step neutral gray values are indispensable for the way I currently paint - building up images value by value and then blending them.

I actually devised this technique on my own before discovering that there is a whole school of painters who call this technique Rational Painting. And Rational Painting extends into color hue and chroma - as well as value - so it's not limited to gray tonal values.

I'm no technician - in fact I've always made a practice of ignoring and skirting technique at every opportunity - but nothing I've found beats having premixed Munsell values - as it avails me the opportunity to lose myself in the painting process without have the burden of mixing tonal values at every step.

After the grisaille underpainting is laid down - grisaille referring to gray - I find great enjoyment in applying colored glazes over it - this is where the fun begins.

Thanks to Sarah Sands for helping with this order.

Following is a painting of mine entitled Peonies Baroque which demonstrates how values 'turn' forms - i.e., make them appear three-dimensional: