When Prince Siddhartha Gautama decided to renounce his privileged position and search for enlightenment, he started by attempting to starve himself to his goal.
When that didn’t work out, He changed tack. He tried the middle way, neither self-indulgence nor self-mortification, and achieved nirvana.
Personally, I know next to nothing about Buddhism, despite being attracted to its spirit. (In fact I just decided to start learning more about it, for about the eightieth time).
But I’m pretty sure that’s an over-simplification! It may even be completely wrong, as far as I know.
But I like the idea nonetheless, because being open to change is a difficult but healthy trait to cultivate.
A change of heart
Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post here about why I find the concept of warm and cool in representational painting so problematic.
It’s too vague for me. I like things to be clear. And I have a suspicion that it may be one of the many unexamined tropes of representational art that often gets repeated without much critical examination.
Like not painting with black. Or the primaries of red, yellow and blue. Or the golden mean.
I’ve had a lot of email from people, too, who were glad to read that post from a year ago because they, too, didn’t get the concept, and it made them feel somehow deficient.
Been there, felt that.
But just lately, I’ve found myself thinking in terms of warm and cool. In a sense, that’s a change in how I think about colour.
But let me explain, because that’s an over-simplification too.
What hasn’t changed
When you’re trying to mix a colour accurately, or when you’re trying to understand how a colour changes across a form from light to shadow, I still think warm and cool isn’t a particularly helpful way to look at things.
Because I think we have a better, more descriptive and clearer way to talk about it: Change of hue.
If I tell you one colour is warmer than another, it may not mean much to you. But if I tell you that the hue changed slightly from blue towards green, that gives you more information.
But a few things lately have nudged me to reassess my previous blanket dismissal of the concept of warm and cool, and to allow myself to reconsider it in one specific area.
First nudge
The first is finally reading A Colour Notation by Albert H Munsell. In much of this book, Munsell talks about colour design principles. And he talks a lot about warm and cool colours.
Second nudge
One of my personal painting heroes, Emil Carlsen, also talks about warm and cool when he describes his process. Here’s a short excerpt:
After the shadows have been washed in and the background indicated with a thin wash somewhat richer and warmer than nature, commence to model the lights.
You need to look closely at Carlsen’s late work, particularly the etherial, low chroma pieces to really see what he means here, I think. I’ll get to that shortly.
Third
The last thing that’s begun to change my mind is that I’ve recently embarked on a series of colour design exercises from Arthur Wesley Dow, also based on Munsell. And I’ve been finding the concept of warm or cool hues, in relation to the Munsell hue wheel, a useful way to think about what I’m doing.
So I’m beginning to wonder if, at least as far as picture design goes, the concept of warm and cool may be a useful broad stroke to use to begin thinking about colour combinations.
What has changed
Here’s a quick video of one of my regular “studio drop-in” sessions where I’m explaining more about where this idea is coming from, and how I think it might be useful.
In it, I show a close up of a Carlsen painting that I think clarifies his comments I quoted earlier.
Painting Nirvana?
Well, no. I don’t expect to suddenly start achieving wonderful results because I’m choosing the moderate way. Not at all.
But I do think it’s important to examine and re-examine our ideas about what we do.
No, it’s not easy. I certainly don’t like doing it.
And in fact, very, very few people ever do it at all, even if they pay the idea lip service.
In representational painting, I see a lot of people desperately clinging to ideas that ultimately are holding them back, stopping them from making progress – particularly when it comes to colour.
I’d like to change that, and I believe that if I present what I’m doing clearly enough, I can. Not for everyone, perhaps, but at least for people who are open to new ideas and want to make progress.
And of course that means I need to stay open to other possibilities too – at least until I’ve thoroughly tested them for myself.
And there’s the rub. I see a lot of people in art forums and art groups on Facebook clinging to – or even worse, roughly and sometimes rudely dismissing – ideas that they have never tested with a brush in their hands. Ideas that could very well help them develop as artists.
I’ve always tried to make that a central part of my process of self learning – to constantly question, never to accept any concept without thoroughly testing it first.
The results can be surprising. Not least the amount of ire you can engender by simply taking an established idea and saying “this may not be true”!
Change for the better
Ultimately, the only way we can move forward with our work and perhaps find our own voice more completely is by testing things out for ourselves.
That’s the spirit I try to keep to on this blog. When I advocate something, like sight size, Munsell, deliberate practice, Dow’s composition exercises, it’s because I’ve worked with it thoroughly enough and for long enough to see the results in my work – to know whether its useful or not. And that makes me want to share it.
That seems like a worthy goal to me. And at least in this case, the middle way seems to be making the most sense.
Just don’t get me started on modelling form.
Best wishes and thanks for reading,
Paul
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My experience has been based on observation of the natural. Look at the redness of a flower say a rose. Decide in your own mind if the red sits on the warm or cool side, in other words does it tend to be red with some blue in it or is it more yellowey. Say you decide the red sits on the blue side, now bring your eye down to where the flower meets the green of the stem and its my experience that the green of the stem will sit on the blue side. If it was a warm red the stem will be a warm green. Have a look see what you think.
Very interesting thoughts and you have such flair for using the right words! On the subject of hue and modelling – don’t you thing that the surrounding colours play a part in the way a hue changes from light to shadow? A shadow can be warmer or cooler depending on the influence of the colours reflected in it.
Yes, absolutely. Reflected light can make a difference. It’s very often overdone and over-exaggerated though, especially the value! The effect is usually really subtle, I find.
Maybe it depends on the color of the light reflecting into your shadows. The shadows outside on a clear day are very cool because it reflects the blue of the sky, unless it’s bouncing off warm grass. Indoors the shadows depend on what color the light is bouncing off of. Even window light on a cloudy day can produce a somewhat cool shadow, unless it’s bouncing off something warm. Kamille Corry says that for skin she sees warm shadows, warm highlights and cool(gray/ green) half tones. I never could see it until I looked for it.
Yes it absolutely does depend on the light, direct and reflected. That’s why I’m always stressing to look for whats actually there.
I kind of wish I hadn’t mentioned that in the video now though, because what I was really talking about was warm and cool in relation to colour design – a completely different thing!
Very interesting and useful—thanks Paul. Keeping an open mind and avoiding dogma is so important in art —and in life generally. Once you cease to reflect upon and challenge your own ideas and viewpoint, you stop learning and growing. Colour design is a fascinating topic. I’ve been looking at some of the Post Impressionists lately and noticing the juxtaposition of bright and dull colours, which is similar but different to playing with warm/cool combinations or overlays. I’m looking forward to further interesting webinars and posts from you.
18:20 “You can’t do it by sitting down and thinking about it and deciding this way or that, you’ve got to get your brushes out”
My new Paul Foxton inspiration
🙂
I would really like to understand muted color better, especially in relation to landscape painting.
Is there a good treatise on this subject?
Not that I know of Ted. But I’d strongly advice getting to grips with the Munsell way of approaching colour, because what you’re talking about is simply low chroma colour. Unfortunately many of our tube paints are high chroma, especially with a lot of limited “primary” palettes. I would start by learning to mix true neutrals. You can then introduce them to other colours at the same value to lower the chroma in a much more controlled way than using complement mixing.
Not that I know of Ted. But I’d strongly advise getting to grips with the Munsell way of approaching colour, because what you’re talking about is simply low chroma colour. Unfortunately many of our tube paints are high chroma, especially with a lot of limited “primary” palettes. I would start by learning to mix true neutrals. You can then introduce them to other colours at the same value to lower the chroma in a much more controlled way than using complement mixing.
I completely disagreed with that article you wrote previously and I basically lost interest. I’m really glad you have figured it out, Paul, because this article is what brought me back into your fold. I love that you included the buddhist story.
Painting en plein air will open your eyes to warm and cool colour. You can’t miss it. This is how I learned about colour and how light affects colour. Distance creates cool tones. The light is warm and the shadows cool. If you observe really carefully, you will notice that morning shadows are a purple hue and the light a yellow hue. In the afternoon, you will notice the shadows are a blue hue and the light an orange hue.
Just wanted to clarify that I still agree with your original point (some time ago) that Munsell’s scientific approach is a lot more useful than concepts of warm and cool are, when it comes to analysing or matching colour. If I understand you correctly you’re now saying looking at the use of warm vs cool is helpful in relation to colour design. I think maybe people aren’t seeing these two (colour analysis vs colour composition) as two very different tasks.
Yes, that’s exactly what I”m saying, thanks Jenny. I was beginning to think I hadn’t been clear enough, but I suspect it’s more a case of people hearing what they want to hear. I’m sure we all do it sometimes, me included. I’m just not sure how to address that effectively, or even if I can.
Yay! I’m so glad to read this post. Excellent.
In this post you wrote: “If I tell you one colour is warmer than another, it may not mean much to you. But if I tell you that the hue changed slightly from blue towards green, that gives you more information.” — Ah your first statement is very true because you don’t give any information… but if you said “the blue hue of the object changes from a cool blue to a warmer blue” you have given me the same information as the second statement… “the hue changed slightly from blue towards green”. So I think it’s how you look at it, either notion gives the same information.
In your previous post on “The Problem With Warm and Cool” you wrote: “Is a yellow-green warm, or is it cool? And even if you knew, how would that help you paint?” — It depends. I believe, and use the notion of warm and cool in this way, that it depends on the relation of the color in question to other colors. A yellow-green is warmer than a green, but cooler than a yellow, or a yellow-orange.
For me, the idea of warm and cool colors, and the use of a double primary palette has been a huge help for me to understand how to mix colors and match colors. When I look at a color I try to decide if it is a warm hue or a cool hue, and that helps me know which colors to mix to get closer to a match of what I’m seeing. So far this has worked very well for me. In the end I think that there is no one path to the end goal for everyone… some will find warm/cool double primary palettes work well for them and others will not. Some will find using 20 different colors work well. It only matters what you discover as an individual artist works well to meet your needs and express what you want to express. Right?
I loved this video and your interest in painting and paint! I share this with you. I just took a class in indirect painting a la Venice at the time of Titian.
For the Venetian School, the shadow goes “cool” as the form turns and then it goes “warm” as it gets darker still in the red family, usually the burnt umber ground.
This is not contrived by mixing up batches of color, however. It is caused by the physics of light over dark!!!!
This is a natural optical phenomenon that was originally discovered by Leonarado Da Vinci and brought into painting technique by the Venetians.
My teacher called this atmospheric mixing and he demonstrated it with white and black paint. Dragging white paint over black (not mixing) results in a bluish hue. If you drag black over white, a brown results.
This is not the same as mixing up hues but it is a scumbling/glazing technique used in indirect painting with transparent paints.
Bellini, Giorgio, Titian and the Venetian School where the discovery of atmosphere in painting shadows occurred.