Temperature

In art circles, we use terms like “temperature” to mean something totally different than the common meaning. We’re not the only ones — lighting uses the kelvin scale to measure light temperature, which is also different from the common meaning. But in art circles, we’re not even internally consistent.

Have you ever heard of a “warm blue” or a “cool red”? Most artists generally refer to “relative” color temperature without explicitly saying (or sometimes without knowing it). Any shade of blue is certainly cooler than the “coolest” red. But a warm blue (ultramarine) is warmer than a neutral blue (cobalt blue?) or a cool blue (pthalo blue?, cerulean blue?, prussian blue?). The same is true for any primary. The relative temperature varies by how the neutral hue is biased.

Ultramarine is biased towards purple. Cerulean is biased towards green. And so on. The same is true for reds and yellows. Red can be biased towards its secondary neighbors, as can yellow. It gets a little confusing when we start comparing temperatures among some of these though. Is a red biased towards orange warmer than a neutral red? Many artists would say yes.

If you use a limited palette, with just one blue and one red and one yellow, you save yourself a lot of trouble trying to find the warm red vs the neutral red because you just have red. I like to keep things simple, so I usually only put one red on my palette, one blue, and one yellow. If I want to warm up my yellow, I add red. If I want to cool down my red, I add blue. And so on.

Maybe I’ll expand my horizons one day, but for now, I like it simple.