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Primary Colors
Most of us learned as far back as elementary school that the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue.
In art school, it is taught that many of the Masters, such as Rembrandt, substituted black for blue.
But an old printer/photographer friend of mine insists that the primary colors, in pigments, are magenta, yellow, and cyan -- something that the physicists will confirm as the primary "subtractive" colors, which complement the primary "additive" colors, of light (green, blue, and red): Magenta absorbs green, yellow absorbs blue, and cyan absorbs red.
My old printer friend has even given me extensive color charts showing how all the colors of the spectrum can be created with the printer's standard CMYK color scheme (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK -- the latter for definition). According to my eye, the oranges and blues thus created are a bit muddy; but with red, blue, and yellow, the secondary colors (particularly the violets) sometimes are, too (that's why the standard advice is to include a warm and cool hue of each of the primary colors).
My question is, has anyone out there attempted to paint with a cyan, magenta, and yellow palette (in standard pigments, that would be approximately phthalo blue, alizarin crimson, and a mid yellow)?
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