"Cool Colors" vs "Warm Colors" and Stencils

Today's topmost pair of images show, first, a canvas with an all-hot-colors scheme.  The second is another canvas, this one with an all-cold-colors scheme.  Both paintings were developed with my 6" x 6" stencil  Sassy Spray (scissor-altered.)

I don't think this is always true, but generally speaking, greens and blues are considered cool and are sometimes used by landscape painters to help indicate a background in the distance, and are often used in shaping shadows.  

But, checking a color wheel, you can tell that some blues and greens lean slightly toward warmth.  For example, the yellow-green in the painting directly above is definitely a warm green.  

Golden has labeling that's helpful; for example, at least their Phalto Blue comes in a "red shade," which would be warmer than their Phalto Blue acrylic that comes in a "green shade."

These differences are subtle to the eye when we look at individual colors, separated from one another.

But the temperature differences matter at those times when a painter wants the colors in a painting to be harmonious.  Cool colors play nicely together; warm colors play nicely together.  

And when a painter's purpose is to create non-harmonious art, the same knowledge is valuable, because, for example, the cool reds and the hot reds can be used side-by-side.  

Below are two more art samples of mine, both done on canvas with acrylic paints and stained stencils used as collage.  The stencils come from the highly talented StencilGirl designer Trish McKinney.

Titled Cold on Hot.

Titled Hot on Cold.

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