Of Warm and Cool

The benefit of considering the relative warmness or coolness of areas of nature and paintings, warm and cool paintings, the relative temperature of shadows indoors or out, and the relative ‘projectiveness’ to the eye of warmer over cooler notes.
In Response to
C Ford

[@querenstewart9944]

Thanks Paul enjoyed this it made me smile. You explain art so well as its so complex. Every thing affects everything, as a flat plain and the illusion we are making has so many moving parts we have to keep looking at the whole thing and the relationships and the effects we are getting and adjust accordingly as we go. Keeping on top of the complicated process is the mastery we all seek , and fail to master. As it's a journey we are all on which never ends. The more we learn the more we learn we don't know. Thanks again Sheila

[@PaulIngbretson]

Good comments, Sheila. Thanks

[@banzy3]

A couple of weeks ago I got out of bed early, and set off in the car in -5C (23F). The sun was just on the verge of making an appearance and the whole landscape - consisting of trees and fields - was shimmering and reflecting that cool skylight with a very definite bluish 'cold' tint in all directions with the exception of the distant horizon which had just caught the sun. That distant narrow band was glowing warm and definitely in the reds and oranges. It flew in the face of traditional teaching, and yet it was the clearest example I've observed of a warm distant background, and a very cold foreground. Visually it read perfectly well, proving to myself that warms can recede over cools if the values and relationships are respected. Clearly nature is the best teacher, and shows why rules should never be sacrosanct.

[@PaulIngbretson]

All things must be taken together. You are right.

[@chompers11]

Dang Paul I'm so glad I found your channel I feel like I could listen to you talk about art all day

[@PaulIngbretson]

Gratifying to hear.

[@troykilgore1008]

For a long time, almost a decade I struggled with the "warm-cool" concept. When I began to actually "see" color instead of just "looking" at it I noticed that these temperature changes were not as extreme as I first thought. I now think of these temperature shifts as "extensions" of the color that surrounds them. I either extend the temperatures cooler or warmer, I don't think of them as "new" colors anymore. Example: Adding a back-lit tree trunk in front of a hey bail. The hey bail is ochre, the tree appears cool (almost blue in real life)...but on my painting it will be a very ochre-grey. The effect created will "look" blue. Contrast of extension.

[@PaulIngbretson]

Interesting stuff here.

[@querenstewart9944]

Hi troy Very interesting points worth investing further. Thanks Sheila

[@tb8865]

I always liked the Hudson River school paintings that reverse the temp dynamic and warm up as they recede. Thomas Moran and others do this, with the warm haze in the background and glowing atmosphere.

[@PaulIngbretson]

Good point

[@gregwing6409]

Interesting talk especially going into the Monet palette of reversing the warm/cools. That does create a more flat sense of space on the 2D picture plane. I just finished a landscape started plein air late in the day in December with a low sunlight raking warm light in the foreground reeds and striking some middle ground reeds against a dark background of bare trees. So it could have been a flatter space, but like you said the other items of interest placed help to create the illusion of space. Happy New Year! Cheers -Greg

[@PaulIngbretson]

Cheers, Greg.

[@dmspaintings]

Rembrandt’s Preaching of St John the Baptist has wonderful depth without the use of much color. A good example of warm/cool and high/low contrast relationships creating depth.

[@PaulIngbretson]

Yes

[@Braun09tv]

Although Da Vinci paited faces in a way they looked like realism, in fact it was an early impressionism, because of the process of getting to the perfect divinity. That process combined with an untypical technique that enables that, gives you an intentional combination of nature + art. Which is what impressionism is all about in my opinion.

[@PaulIngbretson]

Interesting to think about

[@deborahbarnes8475]

❤

[@MiguelPerezCoaching]

Great video, thank you

[@PaulIngbretson]

Glad you liked it!

[@kathyhigbee1280]

💖💖😊

[@PaulIngbretson]

:)

[@wolfgangtoeglhofer1710]

Excellent tutorial as always. During your talk I was also thinking about focal points based on the paintings you have shown here. At times fp seems missing than there are more than the three. Ok. No rules, but what is your thinking about the general value of focus points with reference to both intensity as well as warm/coolness? Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences

[@PaulIngbretson]

Could you clarify what a focus point is in your point, Wolfgang? Sounds worthy of a discussion. Email if you like at [e-mail]

[@jacobmiller5834]

I've been looking all over youtube for some fundamental drawing instruction. Haven't found exactly what I'm looking for. Any recommendations?

[@PaulIngbretson]

No, but I don't know much of the internet's content. Email me for a copy of my Drawing in the Visual Order video. Shows my thinking.

[@carolclay7082]

Great information. Can you please spell out the name of the palette you were showing? I'm used to a regular color wheel, but this would be even more helpful. Thanks!

[@PaulIngbretson]

And there is a video somewhere discussing it. I use Viridian, Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin, Cad Red Scarlet, Cad Yellow Lemon and outdoors add Permanent Green Light and Sevres Blue

[@querenstewart9944]

Hi carol

[@querenstewart9944]

Hi Carol Did you want the spelling of Munsell colour wheel. I got a lot from it in understanding the three aspects of colour, hue value and chroma(intensity). Paul foxton does videos on KZbin if you want to find out more. Sheila

[@carolclay7082]

@@querenstewart9944 - thank you. I was looking for the spelling so I could find more info.

[@carolclay7082]

@@PaulIngbretson thanks!

[@omnesilere]

Concerning 4 trees; warm and cool is psychologically less significant than overlap when our mind is understanding depth. Just because one tool works doesn't mean it is the only way we understand something.

[@PaulIngbretson]

Agree

[@theodoradanielacapat298]

The downside of being in Sweden... Sad I missed the stream.

[@PaulIngbretson]

:( and we missed you, too. Are you two time zones away from London? I should look that up.

[@PinturaYdibujoENVIVO]

Temperature is measure in kelvins , I think painters took that concept to make sense of the reddish colors, and those that lean to blue, But it really is backwards 😂 I don’t know if going against nature is a good idea 🤔, In Dante’s inferno he sees Hell as a cold place... not warm....Traditional psychological associations, where warm colors are associated with advancing objects and cool colors with receding objects, are directly opposite those seen in astrophysics, where stars or galaxies moving towards our viewpoint on Earth are blueshifted (advancing) and stars or galaxies moving away from Earth are redshifted (receding). The traditional warm/cool association of a color is reversed relative to the color temperature of a theoretical radiating black body; the hottest stars radiate blue (cool) light, and the coolest radiate red (warm) light. from Wikipedia : The kelvin is often used as a measure of the colour temperature of light sources. Colour temperature is based upon the principle that a black body radiator emits light with a frequency distribution characteristic of its temperature. Black bodies at temperatures below about 4000 K appear reddish, whereas those above about 7500 K appear bluish. Colour temperature is important in the fields of image projection and photography, where a colour temperature of approximately 5600 K is required to match "daylight" film emulsions. In astronomy, the stellar classification of stars and their place on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram are based, in part, upon their surface temperature, known as effective temperature. The photosphere of the Sun, for instance, has an effective temperature of 5778 K. Digital cameras and photographic software often use colour temperature in K in edit and setup menus. The simple guide is that higher colour temperature produces an image with enhanced white and blue hues. The reduction in colour temperature produces an image more dominated by reddish, "warmer" colours.

[@gary313]

Great info but hard to see paintings on my phone because your head is so big.

[@PaulIngbretson]

Darn