Color Temperature is Relative

Fine Art By Becky Joy

The concept of color temperature can be confusing. The first thing to know about it is that color temperatures are relative. Looking at a color wheel, it’s easy to see the warm colors, red, yellow and orange. While the cool side consists of violet, blue and green.

In paint it isn’t quite so clear cut, so we must compare. The hottest color on the color wheel is orange-red, the coolest is blue-green. If I start a painting with my warmest color, say an orange-red, then every other color that I put on the canvas is cooler. If I start with a blue-green (the coolest color), then every other color is warmer in relationship to that blue-green.

Just remember that every color has some warm and some cool pigments.  The more red or orange that is in a color, the warmer it is. Less red or orange, the cooler it is.  In the blue family, ultramarine has some red in it compared to cerulean blue which has no red in it. Thus, ultramarine is warmer than cerulean. Lay out all the blue paints that you have. I have a mauve blue. I would place that closer to the warm side. It has more red in it than ultramarine. Somewhere in the middle I would place cobalt blue. It is cooler than ultramarine, but warmer than blue-greens.

On the blue-green side I would place cerulean, prussian, turquoise cobalt, manganese. All of these have some yellow in them. Once I get more yellows in the blue-green paints, the color becomes warmer and is inching toward the warmer side of the color wheel. The featured painting is a warm painting over all with a cool color in the mountains, a violet color. In a different painting, that same violet could be called a warm color. It is all relative.

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