Warm and Cool Are Not What You Were Taught
The same pile of paint can look warm or cool. It depends on what sits next to it.
Most of us learned warm and cool colors from the color wheel. One half is warm, the other half is cool, and a color belongs to one side or the other for good. So when a passage has to feel warm, you reach for the warm side. When it has to feel cool, you reach for blue. And the shadow, of course, goes cool, because that is what you were told.
Here is what I see on my palette instead. I put a pile of paint next to a blue, and it looks warm. Then I put the same pile next to an orange, and now it looks cool. I didn't change it at all.
Warm and cool are not fixed on a color wheel. The same color can look warm next to one color, and cool next to another.
I made a video about it, in three parts. At the end, a cool shadow and a warm shadow mixed from the same pile go up side by side next to the face in my painting, so you can judge for yourself.
Warm and cool colors on the wheel and on the palette
On the color wheel, red, orange and yellow are the warm side, and blue and green are the cool side. That is the picture most of us carry around, and it is a tidy one.
But on the palette, a color is never alone. It is always next to another color, and that changes how it looks.
That is the first part. It is easier to see than to explain, so I start with one pile of paint and nothing else.
One pile, two stripes
The pile is yellow ochre and white, with just a touch of ultramarine blue. It comes out a quiet, muted orange.
I mix it well and make two stripes out of it. Now the same paint sits in two places on the palette, and the only thing I change is what goes beside each stripe.
Beside the first stripe I lay a stripe of ultramarine blue. Next to the blue, the pile looks warm.
Beside the second stripe I lay a stripe of cadmium orange. Next to the orange, the same pile looks cool.
Same mix. Same paint, from the same pile. Nothing about it moved except its neighbor. The same pile can look warm or cool, depending on what is next to it.
If you only ever judge a mix by where its ingredients sit on the wheel, you miss this completely. You have to look at it where it actually lives, next to other paint.
That is one part down, and two to go.
Some colors are warm by themselves
But that is only half of it. Some colors feel warm all by themselves.
Think of the sun. The orange summer sun feels warm, whatever is around it. And a pale winter sun can feel cold, even though it is yellow.
So the neighbor is not the whole story. There are colors that carry their warmth with them wherever they go.
Cadmium orange stays warm on my palette
On my palette, for me, cadmium orange is one of those. It is warm by itself.
I test it the same way I tested the pile. Next to the blue, the orange is warm. Next to the pile, it is still warm. Wherever I put it, it stays warm.
That is the difference between the two parts. The muted pile changed its temperature as soon as I changed what sat beside it. The cadmium orange did not.
So a color can look warm next to another color, and it can be warm by itself. You need both ideas at the easel, and you need to know which one you are looking at.
Warm light and cool shadow is not a rule
The third part is a rule you have probably heard: warm light, cool shadow.
Well, warm light and cool shadow is true outdoors, in the sun, when a blue sky fills the shadows. But it is not a rule.
In my studio there is one light, and I paint the shadow darker and warmer.
I am not going to ask you to take that on my word. Let's mix two shadows from the same pile, and you decide.
Two shadows from the same pile
I take two piles from the same mix.
Into the first one goes a little more ultramarine blue. That is the cool shadow.
Into the second one goes Indian red. It goes darker and warmer. That is the warm shadow.
Now I have both shadows, the cool one and the warm one, and they started from the same paint. I hold them up next to the shadow side of the face in my painting. First the cool shadow, right next to the shadow side of her face. Then the warm one, in the same place. Then both of them side by side.
Which one looks like her shadow to you? I leave that question open on purpose. The point is that you judge it against the face, not against the wheel and not against a rule.
That is warm and cool in three parts:
A color can look warm next to another color.
A color can be warm by itself.
The shadow does not have to be cool.
In this light, I go darker and warmer. And the thing I want you to remember is simple: warm and cool are not on the color wheel. They are on the palette, next to each other.
What to do with this
Mix a quiet, muted pile today - yellow ochre and white with just a touch of ultramarine blue - and make two stripes of it. Lay ultramarine blue beside one and cadmium orange beside the other, and look at the two stripes until you see the same paint change temperature. Then split what is left into two piles, add a little more ultramarine blue to one and Indian red to the other, and hold both next to the shadow side of whatever you are painting. Look at them side by side, in your own light, and let the painting choose, not the rule.
I hope this helped. Tell me in the comments under the video: what do you paint your shadows, warm or cool? The next one to watch is about the lit side and the shadow side. And you are welcome to subscribe to the channel.
Visit the Color Mixing Book Library. The recipes behind my own portraits and the old masters' faces, written down recipe by recipe. See the library
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