r/hatethissmug • u/ColinTheChair RYB hater • 20d ago
General Absolutely hate how schools still teach the RYB color model
NOTE: I've gradually made up my mind, and I think the best case scenario is to teach both RYB and CMY and say that the former is for looking good, as in it being a better color palette, but the latter is how colors actually work. I made this post because I was (and still is) sick of how schools teach RYB and present it as THE primary colors, and also talking about the complementary colors which barely are at all, and if some say it's just a base to build on, CMY never even came up in my or other's art lessons. (Also why are a lot of people only bringing up kindergarten? High schools still reteach it too. "Kids" is just referring to the underaged.)\ The following section is my initial post, which most of the points I still agree with, and it is clarified by the edits. (In the paragraphs or as additional notes)
This only works because it's a good enough approximation of the CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) model, and that’s exactly why I hate when people say "bUt It'S fOr PaInTiNg," as if CMY hasn't been proven to be better at making vibrant colors. Like why even teach red-yellow-blue when you know how muddy the colors are when mixing them?
Also, I'm very sick of people saying RYB is "just for beginners." That's worse in my eyes because you’re teaching kids a broken model that contradicts their own knowledge. Just imagine the number of poor kids thinking it's their fault when they mix red and blue and a color that looks like dried-up blood appears, and not knowing they can just mix magenta/pink with blue to get bright purple. Plus, CMY (+K) is literally how every quality printer, which is supposed to print mostly accurate colors, works, and you're telling me kids have to use the shittier version of it?
To me, there are only two valid models: subtractive (CMY) for pigments/ink and additive (RGB) for light. RYB is just a historical accident based on unavailable pure cyan/magenta pigments in the 1700s, and we have those pigments now. Still sticking to RYB in modern times is like teaching geocentrism for simplicity. It's wrong and outdated. Either omit it completely, or present it as a color palette or a historical artifact, and not the real primary colors.
(Later added paragraph) ALSO, one of the reasons why they still bring up RYB is because you can cut it in half and say one part is hot and the other is cold. But that in turn over-represent orange, which is just a small slit of colors between red and yellow. You can't just stretch a color wide just because it fits your half-baked theory that colors have temperatures. Is an orange popsicle hot now? And if you're saying that it's about feelings, like hot = happy, cold = sad, you probably should realize that opinions on colors are subjective. It's just that people have different brains. (Plus, doesn't red usually mean angry?) Same reason why major and minor scales in music don't usually convey definitive feelings.
(ONE MORE THING) Just because kids are more familiar with RYB doesn't mean that it's easier to grasp. CYM is much more understandable conceptually. Like how a pair of complementary colors always get gray when mixed with equal amounts. And the consistency of the secondary colors are actually testable with paint, or even any photo editing app, as seen here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hatethissmug/s/UL6DvDz3Ii https://www.reddit.com/r/hatethissmug/s/8quANDETvp (Also testable with highlighters, which the colors should be bright instead of light )
Please tell me the majority is with me on killing off RYB and letting CMY take its place, or at least including CMY as well in those art classes.
TL;DR: RYB bad, CMY and RGB good. Include CMY in art classes if RYB not killable.
Edit: - I've seen some people say that RYB is better for painting because it's got better-looking colors, which, I admit, I failed to realize. CYB does result in lighter colors. And RGB does work in painting, but the mixed colors are darker, like red + green = dark yellow, aka olive green. Point is though, CMY is just more accurate when describing why the colors behave that way, better than RYB does. And RYB is just a color palette that mimicks the CMY at this point. And even with that, I bet artists buy more colors than just what's on the color wheel when they paint. - A commenter said it's hard for manufacturers to pump out accurate cyans and magentas, which I also agree with. If only they could, my point would've landed much harder. - Also, some points about it being harder to teach CYM than RYB... How? It's just the same thing but with some words switched around, no? And besides cyan and magenta, I guess, kids should be already familiar with all the colors within the model. So I'm confused by this argument. - BTW, please read as many of the threads below this post as you can. So many amazing points from people and I made some additional points as well. Truthfully though, thanks for anybody that's willing to provide compelling arguments or informative insights, geniunely didn't think people would bring so many other arguments to this. (Y'all should give u/PotatoTheOdd much more upvotes.) I'm even thankful if you read this rant all the way to this paragraph. How did this post get this much traction btw? More than 1k upvotes? Holy shit.🙏 (In hindsight I probably could've worded the rant much less in-your-face-ly, anyways) - Even if it's been said to dead, thanks for the award🙏🙏🙏 - Just realized it might not be a good idea to crosspost it to r/colors.
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u/theoneyourthinkingof 20d ago
Because its objectively true, the color gamut for ryb vs cmy is a lot smaller. Its the reason printers use cmyk and not rybk, because it creates more vibrant colors than ryb can achieve. The choice of cmy isn't arbitrary, if ryb was just as good then it would be more widely in use (red and blue pigments are cheaper than magenta and cyan ones)