Dawn Hunter's South Carolina Sunshine
FOUNDATIONS: ARTS 107
Cold-Warm Contrast
by Dawn Hunter, Project Author
and ARTS 107 Course Director
Johannes Itten identifies Cold-Warm Contrast as one of the seven fundamental color contrasts. At its most extreme, the contrast exists between red-orange, which Itten identifies as the warmest color, and blue-green, which he identifies as the coldest. Between these two poles, however, color temperature is not absolute. A hue may appear warmer or cooler depending upon the colors placed around it.
This relativity is essential to understanding Cold-Warm Contrast. Yellows, oranges and reds are considered warm colors, while greens, blues and violets are considered to be cold colors. However, this is also relative. A color can be perceived as warm when compared with a colder color and as cool when compared with a warmer color. This means that color temperature is perceived by us in comparison with other colors.
Student work in this section was completed by Lauren Sokol, a USC Art History BA major. Cold-Warm Contrast.
Continued, More Than Temperature:
Itten’s use of the terms cold and warm is more complex than simple associations with physical temperature. He identifies a range of perceptions that are opposed to each other and which can be used expressively in art. These include: shadow/sun, transparent/opaque, airy/earthy, far/near, light/heavy and wet/dry. The artist shows how color temperature can greatly affect a perception of an image.
Color temperature can have a powerful influence on the character of a picture. Cold-Warm Contrast thus has an influence on our perception of space and distance. Distant elements in landscapes appear cooler because of the air in front of them. Thus Warm and Cool relationships can indicate nearness and distance and are one of the means to create spatial and perspectival effects.
Student work in this section by Lauryn Hopson:
Cold-Warm Contrast digital preliminary, left, and final composition, right, acrylic on paper, 5" × 8".
Isolating Cold-Warm Contrast
To understand a particular color contrast clearly, Itten advocates controlling competing contrasts. In exercises devoted specifically to Cold-Warm Contrast, he recommends minimizing differences in light and dark so that variations in value do not overpower variations in temperature. The colors are to be compared at approximately equal lightness or darkness in order to study the perception of the warmer-colder-movement between two colors.
Furthermore, Itten examines color modulation, or how a color can be gradually modified in order to become warmer or cooler by shifting it towards neighboring warm or cool colors on the color circle. He urges to keep the changes relatively small in order to still be able to recognize the basic color. A red-orange for example can be made warmer by modifying it towards the orange-yellow, and cooler by modifying it towards the brown. A green can be modified towards the yellow-green or the blue-green.
This is particularly relevant to the preliminary studies in this assignment. Instead of listing colors in closed categories of ‘warm’/’cold’ and establishing clear borders between them, students can explore how a single color becomes warmer or cooler. This shifts focus from naming colors to exploring their relationships.
Students enrolled in ARTS 107 include both majors and non-majors. This student work example is by USC School of Visual Art and Design BA major Jessica Medina. Image 1: Digital preliminary study for the final painting, Cold-Warm Contrast. Image 2: Physical preliminary study of pure forms, Cold-Warm Contrast. Image 3: Final painting. The iterative process of exploring color first through a digital schematic and then through physical studies of pure form is essential to developing an understanding of color relationships before translating those relationships into a final painted composition. Images courtesy of Jessica Medina.
Why Is Cold-Warm Contrast Important?
Cold-Warm Contrast teaches students that color is relational, not absolute. That means that a color can change in terms of temperature, intensity, spatial position and expression depending on the colors that are next to it.
This principle has important implications for composition. Warm and cool relationships can create visual movement, establish emphasis, suggest atmospheric depth, and cause forms to appear to advance or recede. Itten therefore describes Cold-Warm Contrast as having considerable expressive possibilities and as an important means of producing spatial effects.
Working within the framework of Cold-Warm Contrast allows students to look beyond simple categorizations of color such as red is warm and blue is cool. By asking whether a given color is warmer or cooler than the color which it is in contact with, students develop an increased awareness of color as it functions within a composition.
Students enrolled in ARTS 107 include both majors and non-majors. Student work examples: USC McCausland College of Arts and Sciences BFA Graphic Design major Sydney Strause, Cold-Warm Contrast final composition, left, based on her non-central, non-objective design from Contrast of Hue; and USC College of Social Work BSW major Marjorie Jane Stephens, Cats Juxtaposed with Stripes in Cold-Warm Contrast, right, created with pure colors, tints, and shades. Images courtesy of Sydney Strause and Marjorie Jane Stephens.
The Assignment Sheet
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Seeing Color as Form,
Applying Cold-Warm Contrast
Students begin with controlled digital and physical studies in which value and temperature can be examined independently. They create relationships among warm and cool colors at similar levels of lightness and darkness and then investigate how a single hue can be progressively shifted toward warmer and cooler temperatures. These studies are subsequently applied to a composition developed during the preceding Contrast of Hue project. By reusing an existing design rather than inventing a new one, students can concentrate on what happens when the forms remain substantially consistent but the governing color relationships change.
Student work in this section was completed by Madison Hutto, a BFA Graphic Design major in the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. Contrast of Hue, left, and Cold-Warm Contrast, right. Both works are acrylic on paper, 5 × 8 inches each.
This comparison makes an important principle visible: changing color can change our perception of form. A shape that appeared dominant in the Contrast of Hue composition may become subordinate in the Cold-Warm Contrast version. Areas may appear to advance or recede, boundaries may become stronger or weaker, and the visual movement through the composition may shift even though its underlying structure remains recognizable.
In this way, the assignment moves beyond identifying warm and cool colors. Students experience color temperature as a means of constructing space, emphasis, movement, atmosphere, and form.
Conclusion
In the Cold-Warm projects we explore further the function of color as form, space and as visual structure. Returning to previous works from the Contrast of Hue project we transform them by looking at them from the perspective of another color contrast, that of Cold and Warm. Here the students experience for themselves how temperature affects issues of spatial depth, emphasis, movement and as a whole how they perceive a composition. In this iterative process the students discover that decisions about color are not limited to being simply decorative. They can function as parts of a form’s overall structure. In carrying familiar compositions through a new color problem the students increase their knowledge of color in relation to other colors. They come to realize that the function of any given color is always relative to the other colors with which it is associated.
Student work in this section was completed by Lauren Sokol, a USC Art History BA major. Cold-Warm Contrast.