An Evening with Lorin Willey Thinking out about Temperature.... and Color

Students Watching Lorin....

Lorin Willey, Raven Art School's Intermediate and Advanced Instructor, spends the better part of Thursday evening sharing insights about painting. but sometimes  at the end of the evening he just sits and thinks. Here  we have some thoughts   Lorin would like to share on color....

Temperature and Color 

My students often get confused about temperature and what it means in painting. It’s best to keep this simple to begin with. Warm is yellow, and cool is blue. Whenever a color leans towards yellow it begins to get warmer. Whenever a color leans towards blue it begins to get cooler.

Let’s take red. If you add yellow to red it appears warmer. If you add blue to red it appears to get cooler. This will happen with all of your colors.  Yellow is warmer than red. Let me give you an example of this.  Why does ultramarine blue appear cooler than cerulean blue? When one paints a summer sky as we look upwards the blue gets cooler.  And when we paint this color we often will use ultramarine blue.  Ultramarine appears cooler than cerulean blue because it tends towards reddish, or violet. Cerulean blue tends towards greenish which is warmer because of the addition of green which is made with yellow added to blue.  We often use cerulean blue as the summer sky dips towards the horizon.  The yellow sunlight begins to reflect off the earth’s atmosphere which is made of vapor and dust particulates. This tends to shift the blue sky towards a warmer tone.

Also keep in mind that if you add white, or black to your colors that this will also cool them. This is because white and black tend towards blue in that they will cool down your mixtures. I will often tell my students to simply think of white and black as blue. By warming your whites and blacks with yellows, oranges and reds before adding them to mixtures you can counter this affect. Often when painters want a warm shadow they will use an earth like tone made of other colors in their palette. For example if you used a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt umber to make  your dark tone in the shadows, you could easily warm this shadow by adding more burnt umber to this mixture, and likewise if you wanted to cool this same mixture you would simply add more ultramarine.
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  Here is Lorin Doing Demo on Color......
  Ah! That is what the students were watching!

If you wanted to warm this same mixture even further you could add red or yellow to it. Keep in mind that red, violet and green are warmer than blue, and that red, orange and green are cooler than yellow

Just remember that yellow is the warmest color on your palette, and blue is your coolest. An addition of either version of these two hues will shift your mixture in that colors particular direction and temperature.

Yours in paint,

Lorin Willey

Lorin Willey teaches a class every Thursday evening at the Raven Art School. 

Intermediate and Advanced Painting Thursday Evenings 6 - 8:30 pm

Instructor: Lorin Willey

 For over two decades he has been inspiring students and professional artists with his energetic and enthusiastic approach to teaching and lecturing on the ways of art. His classes focus heavily on the individual artist’s development of creative and technical skills. Lorin coined his approach the “3-Cs”; Creativity, Craftsmanship, and Clarity of Intent. He has judged numerous regional art competitions, including several Wisconsin Regional Arts Program Exhibits and Plein Air events, and has lectured at many of Wisconsin’s Art Institutions including Wisconsin Painters and Sculptures, Wisconsin Pastel Society, the Waukesha County Arts League, the West Allis Artists Alliance, and the Kettle Moraine Pastel Artists to name a few. We are sure that you will find these classes inspiring and packed full of skill sets that will enhance your use of all the major tools for creating fine art.
$140/ 4 week session(edited rates are available, contact the Raven Gallery for information)

All Classes are ongoing.  Call or drop in at the Raven to register.

 To learn more about classes go here.