| Author | Message | ||
  Eugene |
I agree with you Robert.. Cmparison is everything! What is cool in one situation is warm in another. | ||
Robert |
Please just ignore the preceeding 2 posts--I reread and didn't express what i mean. I'm sorry for clogging the thread with that. Simply stated, Warm and cool only have meaning if two or more colors are involved in a comparison. | ||
Robert |
Immediately below is here reposted with errors corrected: Anon-- The point is that "warm" and "cool" when used to describe a paint *standing alone* makes little sense. *Standing alone* either ultramarine or pthalo blue are BLUE. How "warm" can that be? It's only in relationship to another hue that warm and cool might gain some meaning, though I seriously that most of even these comparisons seem valid only to those who have had this imprecise and contradictory labeling hammered into them by countless art teachers. Let's say we have yellow and red. Which is warmer? They both seem pretty damn warm to me. That being said suppose we now add ult. blue and pthalo blue to the gathering along with red and yellow. Which blue is warmer? Ult. is closer to red. Pthalo is closer to yellow. Remember they are on a color wheel, a circle, a snake eating its tail. The use of warm and cool to describe a stand alone pigment is virtual nonsense. But, as Drollere says, I still can sort through a stack of varied grays and sense some are warm some are cool. The nonsense IMHO comes when we start saying categorically that Ultramarine (the color of the antarctic ocean) is a warm blue. | ||
Robert |
Anon-- The point is tha warm and cool used to describe a paint stanidn alone makes not sense. Standing alone either ultramarine or pthalo blue are BLUE. How "warm" can that be? It's only in relationship to another hue that warm and cool might gain some meaning, though I serious doubt most of even these as valid. Let's say we have yellow and red. Whiuch is warmer? They both seem pretty damn warm to me. That being said suppoe we add out ult. blue and pthalo blue to the gathering along with red and yellow. Which blue is warmer? Ult. is closer to red. Pthalo is closer to yellow. Pthalo is farther from red so is it cooler? But it isd close to yellow so is it warmer becasue greener. Pthalo blue can only really be condidered cooler than ULT if green is a cooler than pthalo blue. But to me it seems green is warmer than pthalo blue. Remember they are on a color wheel a circle, a snake eating its tail. What I have just tried to show is that the use of warm and cool to describe a stand alone pigment is virtual nonsense. But, as Drollere says, I still can sort through a stack of varied grays and sense some are warm some are cool. The nonsense IMHO comes when we start saying categorically that Ultramine (the color of the antarctic ocean) is a warm blue. | ||
dake |
But UB is warm next to Pthalo blue is it not? Anon, what's with the "!!" ?? | ||
Anonymous |
Ultramarine blue is cool pthalo blue is not warmer than pthalo green. What planet are you from!!! | ||
drollere |
i agree with the sentiment that warm and cool are metaphorically treacherous, and are often based on false ideas, but ... there's something to that warm/cool mojo. for example, it's very easy to sort a heap of undistinguished gray and white paint chips, for example stolen from your local paint store, into two piles: warm and cool. the chips have no hue you can recognize, but there is still "something" about them that is visually very important. reshuffle and resort the pile, and you can repeat your choices at close to 100%. it is amazing, when painted shadow passages just seem to not be working at all, that shifting the tone either warm or cool, depending on context, suddenly snaps them in place. i think the fundamental issue has to do with the relationship between the colors in the painting and the light, the illumination, this implies. the origin of this perceptive faculty may be in the daily transition of solar light from the relatively "cool" high noon illumination, drenched in blue sky reflection, against the "warm" colors around sunset. our eyes have had to adjust daily to this color change in order to see whites and all other colors accurately, and i think grays bring it out because grays are, visually, just shy whites. so we need a way of talking that painters can use to describe the necessary color shift to get those shadows to click, and make a convincing atmosphere of illumination, and i think warm/cool fit the bill quite nicely. you just have to remember the purpose of the terms, and the reason for them, in order to use them accurately and in a way that solves some specific painting problem, rather than fling a "color theory" rule around just because, well, "color theory" is legal in your state. | ||
Robert |
"One way I tell is how it mixes with pure (not cad) red. " Actually, there is no pigment that is pure red (only red with no undertones of either orange or violet). I highly recommend you read "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green," by Michael Wilcox. It will give you a great deal of understanding about this stuff, useful knowledge, not academic hairsplitting. | ||
Robert |
Ult. Blue is warm when compared to pthalo blue, cool against cad. red. In other words warm and cool are relative terms and not absolute attributes of a pigment. Ultramarine blue is a violet biased blue whereas pthalo blue is a green leaning blue. These second descriptors are actual attributes of the pigments. | ||
jdaneman |
Personally, I think ult. blue is warm, as it tends to the purple-red. But that's me. You can get phthalo in cool or warm tone. The warm tone (red) looks a lot like Ult. blue to me. One way I tell is how it mixes with pure (not cad) red. Not a sure fire method, but if you get a lovely violet, I presume it's warmish. | ||
waterdog |
Duuuh ! I was about to ask if Ultramarine Blue is warm or cool, but after reading the preceeding dissertations,think I'll just go on and use what makes the color(s) I want. In an article in the Artist's Mag, (Dec.'04) Nita Leland shows a 'split primary' color wheel with a warm and a cool primary for red, yellow and blue..She has Ul. blue as warm, Prussian and Thalo as cool. In checking out different paint manufacturers, I find they disagree - probably due to the difference in pigments. -- Good luck to all, and may you never get mud from whatever you mix... | ||
Anonymous |
There's one problem with your analysis immediately below this post. As far as you go, yes a blue leaning toward red is a warm blue and a blue leaning toward green is a cool blue. But that is only one higly limited use of the terms and is not why the objection has arisen. The problem is not that warm and cool are wrong, but vague and imprecise. Useful to a point only. How do I neutralze cadmium scarlet (make a gray)? It is an orange biased red. Taking the complement of orange (blue) and the complement or red (green). I would use a blue biased green to neutralize an orange biased red. This is clear--no vagueness. It is also clear that most people are comfortable with warm/cool terminology. Great. It is not a crime, just sloppy and imprecise terminology. Nothing more. | ||
Anonymous |
Is it really important which term is used? To me it's simple. Just look at the color wheel. Blue leaning toward purple (biased) is warm and blue leaning green is cool-- Yellow leaning toward orange is warm and yellow leaning toward green is cool-- Red leaning toward orange is warm and red leaning toward purple is cool. And likewise for all the secondary colors and greys. I don't want to be biased, I'll go on thinking as I always did. If "biased" is easier for others, - great! | ||
Robert |
If nothing else comes of this thread, one thing that might become apparent is the difference between lieral and figurative (metaphoric) language. To say a color is "hot" is metaphor--comparing the visual to something sensed by touch. To say a green is biased toward blue is "literal" because both blue and green are spoken in terms of vision, the realm in which color operates. The ability to know when you are speaking or hearing metaphor instead of literal language is a sophisticated skill but is also helpful in guaranteeing accurate understandng. | ||
John Preston |
Shyone, You've made the case for bias in your description of pthalo green. You described it's high chroma and high tinting power as "hot", neither of which has to do with "temperature". That's why I think bias is so much better a term. It avoids all the semantic and emotional associations we have with certain words. It's so much simpler to say a color leans one way, the other, or is right up the middle. | ||
Zoe |
This is a never-ending question this flawed metaphor. So if I sit in the sun, a yellow bias am I warm, or cool? Then the lights go out, darkness prevails. Where am I? Certainly not in a violet biased room :) Taxonomy is only as good as it's originators. We'll not settle this metaphor, me thinks. Pulling your leg, Robert. | ||
shyone |
Just look at them, Pthalo Blue is warm and Ultramarine Blue is cool. This is also how they react with cool and warm yellows and reds. Why is this controversial? Pthalo Green is so hot and powerful, it is the habanero of pigments, a tiny bit will do ya, in fact you can generally leave it all alone...or just use in tiny bits, here and there, you know what I mean... | ||
Robert |
In the interest of discussion, I personally feel it's a shame so many artists have picked up the unfortunate method of distingishing shades of color as cool or warm. I realize the practice is ubiquitous but as someone who wan't trained to use these terms I find their use irritating and inexact (though i resort to it at times in the same sense I resort to simple language with my young niece). I understand it is convienant to refer to lemon yellow as cool and indian yellow as warm, to call ultramarine blue warm and pthalo blue cool, to say that permanent rose is cooler than cadmium scarlet. It makes more sense to use biases--Cadmium scarlet is biased towrad orange, permanent rose toward violet. In what universe is ultramarine really a warm color? It is simply violet biased whereas cerulean has a greener leaning. In poetry this is called "synesthesia" confusing one sense with another. Here color is best understood in terms of visuals, not the sense of touch (warmer, cooler). To desribe ultramarine blue I shouldn't have to resort to comparing it to permanent rose--it is cooler than permanet rose but warmer than pthalo green. No wait, pthalo green leans more toward yellow so it is actually warmer than ultramarine. But pthalo blue is cooler than ultramarine but warmer than pthalo green. No it is cooler than pthalo green, being bluer. (Throws upo his hands) Why not just say ultramarine contains a violet bias. No need to compare it to another pigment (warmer than..). Again I find the whole habit of warm--cooler to be unfortuate in its imprecision. But old habits die hard. |
