But how about when we have different shades of only one color, such as yellow. Next to warmer yellow-orange and red, the pure yellow color looks cold, but when it placed next to yellow-green, green and blue, this yellow color is considered to be warm.īlue and orange, green and red are obvious examples of a high cold-warm contrast. Here's yet another example – this time for the yellow color. The same goes for the green: when it is placed next to the yellow and red, its color is cold but next to blue and violet, the green swatch appears warm.

When it is placed next to the red and orange warm colors, the violet swatch appears cold, but when the violet color has blue neighbors, its color is warm. I will now do the same demonstration for the violet color. This therefore demonstrates that the same color can be cold in one situation and warm in another. However, when a Rose violet swatch is placed next to the cold blue colors, its temperature is undoubtedly warm. In comparison to its neighbors, the Carmine paint swatch has a cold color. Next to the first swatch, I paint warmer colors, such as orange and red. For this purpose, I will apply two swatches of Carmine paint – this color is located on the warm side of the color circle. To demonstrate how this works, I show how the Rose violet color appears in combination with other colors. Orange and blue are very obvious examples of hot and cold colors however, what about the red-violet color – is this hot or cold? It depends on the other colors is it surrounded with. The orange color in-between has a high temperature, and appears in strong contrast to the blue boxes. I will now apply this blue color on both sides of the orange swatch. Let's now see how turquoise blue paint swatch looks between two orange boxes: it appears very cold when surrounded by warm colors. I fill in some of the boxes with the Cadmium orange paint.

Warm and cool colors in art