Warm vs Cool: Mastering Temperature of Color

The concept of cool color vs. warm color in art is a notorious challenge. It is referred to as “temperature of color”. We’ve been getting requests from our students to explain temperature as it relates to painting. By popular demand, we are offering this 6-week course that will address this.

In this course, you will learn a technique that will help you understand why and when to use cold and warm colors. It is important for expressing the difference between various materials, and it creates the impressive appearance of realism. For example, a translucent flower petal, or a curtain illuminated from behind, or a dog’s ear that lets the light through, or red wine in a glass when you look at it in front of a window. Another instance: the difference between the color of the reflected light, the color of the diffused light, and the color of the direct light. 

It is hard to visualize it from those descriptions because this concept can’t be grasped or explained verbally; it is one of those painting nuances that you can only learn through experience, and that is what this course will do.

This AMAZING technique will help you understand it once and for all. You will acquire a new breakthrough shortcut to painting, that will most likely be new even for the contemporary artist. But there is even more; this course is loaded with surprises. 

If you want to feel enriched as an artist and: 

• acquire a new technique 
• learn a painting shortcut that will expand your horizons
• explore a unique type of mixed media
• get clear about tonality & tonal range  
• grasp the application of warm and cold colors

- then be sure to be there!

This course is suitable for all levels: you don’t need to know how to draw; however, if you can draw, it is always a plus. This is not a prerequisite, but a recommendation: attend the Essential Drawing Course before joining any painting course.

Course schedule

• Week 1: Create a small study to understand temperature
• Week 2: Experiment with the proportions between charcoal and paint to control cool and warm colors through a second study
• Week 3: Make a third study, changing the proportions between your mediums
• Week 4: Draw and paint from a more complex subject with a broad range of temperatures
• Week 5: Continue refining your piece from week 4
• Week 6: Add finishing touches, wrap up the course with student work exhibition

For the Supply List, please CLICK HERE