Hot Flashes at High Noon

Oct 18

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Color Theory-plooza

We’re hitting the essentials color theory for the next couple of weeks. I’m getting some great questions and to answer them, I’m bringing back a few classic articles.

I can never leave ‘em untouched so everything has been updated and edited.

Last week, I explained why we use a CMY color wheel (cyan, magenta, yellow) rather than a Newtonian (red, yellow, blue).

This week, let’s learn how to hold your color wheel.

I purchase most of my art supplies from Dick Blick. Shop using my affiliate link to support this free newsletter.

It’s another rushed morning…

If you don’t leave by 6:30, you’ll get stuck in rush hour traffic.

Detail of *The Persistence of Memory* by Salvadore Dali

As the long hand of the clock ticks downward, you start to hurry.

Another glance at the clock, where’s the big hand now?

Hurry faster!

OMG, wait a minute— someone messed with the clock! It’s weird and almost upside-down on the wall. The number 4 is up at the top. The 10 is down at the bottom.

So are you late or are you early?

My coloring students range from neophytes to marker Michelangelos. Everyone arrives with different skills and goals.

But the universal trait is that nobody understands color temperature. Not really.

Is this a warm green or a cool green? Is this warm red or cool red?

Nobody knows.

Some folks pull out their Stampin’ My Heart pocket color wheel which divides the wheel into halves. It says yellow, orange, and red are warm. Blue, green, and violet are cool.

But the wheel doesn’t say anything about cool yellow!

How can yellow be cool if it’s on the warm half of the wheel?

Here’s a test:

If I hand you three orange markers, can you arrange them warm to cool?

Why is the orange test so hard?

Oh Amy, I know your writing style now. Here’s where you complain about big evil corporations making bad color wheels, right?

Nope. The color wheels are fine.

This one’s all on you.

If you won the lottery and bought every color wheel ever printed…

The first thing you’d notice is how everyone confuses purple and violet…

But that’s a rant for another day.

What you’ll actually notice when you start comparing all the different wheels is how nobody agrees on the Mason Dixon line between warm colors and cool colors.

Here’s two color wheels I found online. They’re both from articles explaining color theory and yet they don’t agree.

Chartreuse is the pea pod color between yellow and green. Notice how it bounces around? which team is Chartreuse playing for?

Nobody knows.

You’ll also see magenta and sometimes purple getting the same treatment, assuming your wheel even has magenta and purple at all <sigh>.

So where is the boundary?

Where does warm start and stop?

*And yes, Mr. Smartypants… I know I’ve got Newtonian RYB color wheels up there. I couldn’t find any good CMY examples and didn’t feel like drawing ‘em.

Stop what you’re doing and go get your color wheel.

Yes, stop reading. Set this article down and go find your color wheel. Pick it up. And honestly, I don’t care if it’s a CMY or RYB wheel this time, just grab a wheel, any wheel.

Are you holding it right now?

Good.

Pssstttt… you’re holding it upside down. No, not like that, now you’ve got it sideways.

But Amy, it’s a circle. There is no up or down!

And that my dear, is exactly why you failed the orange marker test earlier.

Look up in the sky. See the big glow-ball up there?

The sun is our primary source of light and warmth.

What color is it?

Well, uhm… uh…

Relax, don’t bust your brain trying to invent a fancy name. Every kindergartener would grab a yellow crayon to color the sun. Heck, you would too if you didn’t think I’d be all judgy and say “Well, actually…”

The sun is yellow. The sun is warm. Yellow is warm.

Now there are several kinds of color theory out there— Catholic, Presbyterian, Hari Krishna. The school of color theory I’m teaching you is the kind I like to call, Don’t Overthink It.

Here’s all you need to know: Yellow is the source of warmth on the color wheel.

Just think of the yellow sun at noon.

Treat your color wheel like a clock. Yellow is always at 12:00. Always. Always. ALWAYS.

What time is lunch? Yellow o’clock.

When you pin your color wheel to the corkboard or tape it to the wall, yellow should be up top. When you pull your wheel from the filing cabinet, grab it by the yellow. When you dream at night, all the dancing color wheels in your dreams should all be yellow up.

Developing a strict top-yellow instinct is the key to understanding the difference between warm and cool colors.

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round…

Hey! Stop spinning your color wheel!

But Amy, it’s a wheel. Half of them come with spinners built in…

Do you spin the clock?

Do you spin the speedometer on your car?

If you spin the wheel, you can’t read the built-in thermometer.

Stop thinking of colors as either warm or cool.

It’s not the Hatfields versus the McCoys. Bloods or Crips.

It’s not either/or.

Flat thinking leads to flat coloring.

Instead, think warm-er and cool-er.

And the question is always “warmer than what?” and “cooler than what?”

Yellow sits at the top of the wheel— yellow is the source of all warmth.

As you move away from yellow or downward along the wheel…

(And it doesn’t matter if you move left or right)

The farther you move from yellow, the farther you are from the sun, the cooler the color.

But Amy! No, no. no! That’s not right. Red is a very warm color! Your little drawing here says that red is 3 spaces cooler than yellow. But aqua is three spaces too! There is no way red and aqua are the same temperature!!!

No, we’re talking general temperature direction here.

Yes, the right side of my wheel here is generally warm-er than the left but honestly, this fact plus a bag of potatoes equals one bag of potatoes.

Warm side vs. cool side is useless. What you actually need to know is the warm side of green and the cool side of green.

And anyway, this is color theory. THEORY. If you came here for exact science, whoa-doggie, you’re in the wrong place.

All I’m saying is that the closer to yellow a color is, the warmer it feels.

So if you have two greens, find them on the wheel.

Which green sits closer to yellow?

The warmer green.

Notice I didn’t say “the warm green” because both markers are cooler than any of the YG greens…

That’s the way color works.

Green isn’t warm. Green isn’t cool.

G46 Mistletoe is warm-er than turquoise but cool-er than chartreuse.

Everything is on a sliding scale. To learn the scale, you must know which end is up.

Yellow.

Yellow is always up.

Now for a harder one.

If you have two light reds, find them on the color wheel.

This can be tricky because years of bad instruction have most of you thinking “R12 looks orange and R85 is pink.”

No. If that was the case, R12 would say YR on the cap and R85 would say RV. They don’t because they’re not. They’re red.

Both markers are highly diluted red inks. Washed-out colors are harder to place. Sometimes with Copic, you gotta look at the darker markers in the same number group to picture where the source ink lands on the wheel.

Now comparing our two light reds, which one feels warmer?

R12 has more yellow in it. R12 is warmer than R85.

But they’re both cool-er than something like YR30 and they’re warm-er than V06.

It’s all relative.

Okay, that was fun but why do I need to know which color is warmer?

Do you shade?

Do you shade leaves?

Do you shade cool G03 leaves with warm-er G46 and wonder why they look oddly flat?

Ooooooooohhhhh.

But wait, Amy. Can’t I just use the Copic color wheel?

No. Copic doesn’t number markers by temperature. They laugh at temperature. It’s not even on their radar.

Oh, I know! I’ll use the Hex Chart!

Oh hellz no. I love the Hex but that thing is all over the map on temperature.

Just hold your color wheel with yellow at the top and figure it out.

The first few times are the hardest but once you’ve got it, you’ve got it for life.

When you train your brain to think in temps, you’ll naturally select better blending combinations, shading colors, and color palettes with nary a care.

Warm-er and cool-er.

You can do it-er.

__________

I know at least one person reading this today is jumping up and down, screaming:

“But Amy, I know some color theory! Warm blue isn’t closer to yellow. Neener, neener, neener.”

Next week, we’ll talk the stupidest debate in color theory.

__________

And for those wondering about the orange test:

Warm to cool = YR24, YR65, YR09