Understanding warm and cool color relationships is essential for painters interested in expressive mood, atmospheric depth, and dynamic compositions. Without this skill, paintings risk appearing flat, muddy, or visually confusing. Learning temperature shifts empowers artists to create clear spatial depth, vibrant atmosphere, and harmonious moods through color.

Each week, we’ll explore warm/cool concepts through demonstrations, targeted exercises, and personalized feedback:

• Impressionist shimmer (light and shadow through temperature)
• Atmospheric perspective (expressive depth using color)
• Accurate color matching (observational replication through temperature shifts)
• Mood and harmony (emotional impact with complementary colors)
• Expressive color contrasts (using temperature to energize compositions)

This is a friendly Level 2 class, welcoming artists who have completed Beginning Painting or comparable studio learning. Open to oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache. Come ready to expand your understanding and confidently handle temperature relationships in your paintings.

Color Theory Materials list

Paint Colors to use – Can be other medium but for paint we should have the following hues:

• Cadmium Warm Red
• Alizarin Crimson or Quinacridone Magenta
• Ultramarine Blue
• Phthalo Blue (Green Hue)
• Cadmium Yellow Medium
• Titanium White
• Ivory or Mars Black

Surface(s)

Any kind of canvas or canvas panel will work best for this class, unless you are working with water media like gouache or watercolor in which case watercolor paper is required.

Watercolor and gouache paper I recommend…

• A pad of Fluid 100 Cold Press watercolor paper 1401b OR Strathmore 400 series

Canvases

• Five Primed 11” x 14” or 16” x 20” panels/canvases/papers for five studies across five weeks.
• One Primed 11” x 14” surface for 1 color wheel

Brushes/etc.

• Bristle brushes if working in oil/acrylics, sables or nylon with water media
• Solvent – Gamsol for oil users
• Paper towels, rags
• 1 palette knife
• Reusable paint palettes or palette paper
• 1 water bucket (for painting mediums)
• Pencils (for light sketching)
• Erasures
• Sketchbook
• Masking Tape