How to Tell if a Color is Warm or Cool

I hear lots of questions from students about warm and cool colors, and their confusion in telling them apart. In this video we look at some of the most common warm and cool primaries and why they are warm or cool.
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• How to Tell if a Color...

[@dianecharest8365]

Again, thank yooou for sharing your knowledge.

[@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole]

I've noticed that on the piano, or just in the scales from C to C on whatever instrument, C to F are warm sounding. And from F-sharp to B are cooler textures. Especially when comparing single notes individually to each other. For many years I began to simply associate C with red. D with orange, E with Yellow, etc. Then more recently it it me that the greatest love songs are in Red: C major. And songs of death and estrangement are in A-flat. Like Sting's stalker song, "Every Breath You Take." Also, if C is red, the tritone or "Devi's Interval" to that is actually in Green (F-sharp). Therefore just as Red and Green mix down to neutral gray or black, so does C and F# harmonically cancel each other out. I'm actually documenting this on my channel here, The Acoustic Rabbit Hole. // Just sharing some "parallel" info on the subject.

[@janettepolt2815]

merci pour votre aid

[@sigrunasa]

Very helpful thanks!

[@thalaagdal2457]

Merci pour votre générosité. C'est très instructif.

[@annesteel5155]

Brilliant! Thank you. I'll get right on mixing those colors. This has been very unclear to me before your video. I appreciate your forthright manner.

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

Anne, you’re welcome - thanks for watching.

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

Thank you for watching "How to Tell if a Color is Warm or Cool." I appreciate your support!

[@wubbaism]

Thanks David. Always great information and important to review and remind yourself regularly of these kind of fundamentals.

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

You’re welcome

[@rikyvandeursen4911]

Thank you David, always love watching your videos, learn a lot even though I’m not a professional artist painter 😊🙏🏽

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

Riky, thank you for watching!

[@thalaagdal2457]

Très intéressant !

[@wazzap500]

This warm/cool thinking seems somewhat random to me. What will happen when you limit your palette in terms of the pigments you use is youll limit your gamut and the color mixing space. example: ultramarine and quin. magenta will make a better purple mixture than cerulean blue and cad red. The goal is too choose a color space that you like and fits the subject.

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

Why is it random? It’s hundreds of years old as a concept. It’s just basic stuff knowing what’s warm and what’s cool. How can more knowledge be limiting????

[@OyVeyLala]

Thank you and you’re right- I get the blues mixed up because I think of colors like pthalo blue as having a touch of yellow (not green). I think I was once incorrectly told to think of temperature as what’s closer to yellow is warm. Anyway what is straight TEAL? I’m thinking cool but when I mix it with quin magenta it’s violet, which is confusing. Is violet and purple in between?

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

Lauren, teal is blue green - cool. One of my favorite violet mixtures is Golden’s Teal mixed with Medium Magenta. Blue Green’s can be used to make violets, but warm reds cannot be used. It takes lots of experimentation.

[@K-Art1]

Hello David, I appreciate your paintings and your very didactic explanations. I would like to know if with primary magenta, primary cyan, primary yellow, white and black we can obtain all the colors of the Golden brand. Which colors to buy from the Golden brand to obtain a wide palette by mixing? Thanks a lot !

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

You can typically make the colors you need from primaries and black and white. Whether you can make the specific colors of any brand is unlikely. I’m not sure why you think you need to match the colors of a brand. Make the colors that work for you.

[@K-Art1]

@@davidm.kesslerfineart1717 You are right, I will buy the primaries, the white and black Golden brand. Usually I work with Amsterdam acrylic but the pigment concentration is not the same as Golden. Thank you for your kindness !

[@suemauer5965]

Is there somewhere we could buy true primary red and yellow in watercolor - the colors that would be on your center line like cobalt blue?

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

A quick internet search will probably provide an answer.

[@KirkwoodStudio]

Hi David. I understand this concept, but when I look at my Golden Cadmium Red medium and my cadmium yellow deep, it doesn’t list red or orange in the pigments list.

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

Janice, I have been a painter for 33 years and never once looked at a pigment list. A pigment list means nothing. These are universal truths in painting.

[@orandxb]

Hi David. I started painting a year ago. following tutorials on youtube, trying to copie representative paintings. but lately, I have an extreme urge to do intuitive paintings. Do you know where this urge comes from?? regards.

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

It’s probably your creative self telling you to do your own thing. You should never copy someone else’s work - there are copyright laws that protect the paintings that artists do, so please stop doing that. You don’t need to because you can do your own work. Focus on that for awhile and see what happens. Forget the YT tutorials and at least sign up for a multi-day workshop with a nationally known instructor to get some real instruction. When I did that it changed my life.

[@orandxb]

@@davidm.kesslerfineart1717 Thanks for the prompt reply. I 'm not selling the paintings I'm making. It's just that as a self taught youhave to start somewhere.

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

@@orandxb it’s a hard to break once established.

[@RobertJonesWightpaint]

I've just watched a video by one Dianne Mize (I may have got the name a bit wrong) which insists that Ultramarine is cooler than Prussian Blue; she takes yellow, ANY yellow, as being warm, using a version of the colour wheel which she's taking literally; but it isn't laid out in any logical way.... what effect this has on actual painting I'm not sure.... but when I suggest students take a look at KZbin for guidance, I do need to be a lot clearer about those to whom they should pay attention. Dianne is saying the exact opposite of what you're saying, and in my opinion - she's totally wrong. I wonder what effect these opinions have on actual paintings - do you think it would make a real difference, one way or the other?

[@davidm.kesslerfineart1717]

Robert, I’m not sure what effects it would ultimately have on paintings. What I have presented here are generally accepted as universal principals about color that I have gleaned from others over the last 30 plus years - these are not opinions I have made up. Some others will have different opinions, as they always do. Thanks for watching.