Colour Temperature

Colour temperature can be a little bit confusing but in general, blues, greens and violets are cool colours and your reds, oranges and yellows are warm.

colour temperature on the colour wheel
warm cool colours

Cool Blue - Warm Blue

Where it gets confusing is that each primary colour can be warm or cool, a cool blue Pthalo Blue is cool as it leans towards green and a warm blue Ultramarine Blue is warm as it leans towards red, i.e.it is not a perfect primary but has a little red pigment within it.

Temperature = Mood

Depending on the overall colour scheme of your painting will define the mood.

local colour shadow
warm

Warm

The colours here produce a wonderful warm  feeling, you can feel the weather through the painting.

Video understanding colour temperature and skin tones.

Here’s a fantastic video to help you understand colour temperature and using this understanding with skin tones, bu Marco Bucci / Proko