Following on from my post on undertones, here are some more examples of the differences between warm and cool undertones of colours.
When picking undertones, you want to look at what the colour is made of, as if you were painting it, and think about what colours you’d mix together to create it. If you’re adding yellow to a colour, you’re warming it up. If it needs some blue, you’re cooling it down, though with purples, adding red warms it up, adding blue cools it down. As you can see with the following pictures, whether the colours are lighter, darker, brighter or more muted, you can still have warm or cool undertones.
Tints
Light colours with white added are called tints
Next: undertones of shades
Shades
Dark colours with black added are called shades.
Tones
Greyed down, muted, smokey or dusky colours with grey added are called tones.
Clear or Bright
Then there are the pure, bright colours which don’t have lots of black, white or grey added to them and keep their clarity.
As you can see there are no cool oranges. Because orange is made from combining red and yellow, and you can’t add anything to cool it down (such as blue, but to add enough to cool it down, it becomes brown).
Further reading:
How Do You Figure Out If You’ve Got a Warm or Cool Skin Undertone?
How to Choose Prints and Patterns that Go With Your Colour Palette
Thank for the color comparisons. The side by side is making it easier to see the warm/cool variations. Of all – I only understood the red. Now I’m seeing others.
This is so awesome!! Thank you, Imogen!
I agree… this is awesome!
Wow, this is just beautiful… Thanks Imogen. In an old post you taught us about putting colours together: should not mix warm and cool, and tints should go with tints, pure with pure etc. Now the new thing was about value, how colours should be the same value.
1. Am I then correct that if we take the cool pure turquoise and cool pure green above, they wouldn’t work together that well, as one is light or the other dark?
2. does pattern not count? what’s your opinion on this dress, as it mixes yellow (light) green (darker):
http://www.everything5pounds.com/neck-floral-dress-p-36857.html
3. how about medium and light or medium and dark? (let me guess, slightly better, but still not great? ie it should be dark-dark, or light-light or medium-medium?)
4. finally, does jewellery, like a pendant in a necklace and earrings count? e.g. (all bright and cool) light coloured jacket, different colour but still light blouse, one dark neutral skirt to get high contrast but the necklace and earrings can be either dark or medium or light colour (as long as they are bright and cool)?
Many thanks, as always!
I love your posts on colour, Imogen. Some time ago I read your original posts on undertone and overtone, tints and shades. It wasn’t quite clear to me but I was intrigued. So I grabbed my son’s acrylic paints: red, blue, yellow, white and black and created the entire colour wheel. Cool greens, warm blues, corals…. Then I started adding white and black and created shades and tints of those colours on the outside and inside. Now I understand it so much better and rarely make a mistake when shopping. So much more fun now!
Thank you for your great work. I hope one day I will be able to attend one of your colour analysis courses.
When I am shopping and unsure if a colour is warm or cool I look for something orange or yellow in the store to hold next to the item. If the colours seems to match I think it is warm however it does not seem to match or tone in with the colour in question I consider it cool.
Something, Im noticeing is that I always struggling with choosing the right undertone on browns because their properties (toasty and bright) are a bit confusing especially tan/cognac and rosebrown. Like:
# Is tan a bright or toasty brown?
I often see it in more bright and warm color palettes (often paired with black and gold), but for some reason I feel it more appealing with darker earthtones. Terracotta rather than halloween-orange or peach. :S Along with camel and khaki, Its one of most trickiest neutrals to style.
This kind of brown: http://lp.hm.com/hmprod?set=key%5Bsource%5D,value%5B/model/2014/3KV%200133446%20007%2042%202861.jpg%5D&set=key%5Brotate%5D,value%5B%5D&set=key%5Bwidth%5D,value%5B%5D&set=key%5Bheight%5D,value%5B%5D&set=key%5Bx%5D,value%5B%5D&set=key%5By%5D,value%5B%5D&set=key%5Btype%5D,value%5BSTILL_LIFE_FRONT%5D&hmver=5&call=url%5Bfile:/product/large%5D
# Is rosebrown that you mentioned in the hair color post (neutrals that worked best for your hair) some sort of of taupe kind of brown or more peachy? Because everytime I google about it, it looks like a peachy brown (more warm) and looks really odd with khaki (yellow-green casted browns or beige’s). Ive a cardigan is this burned rosy-brown color: https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10425031_303533106521977_1743940049333011304_n.jpg?oh=c2564e52abd1113b9d422970e4f045d5&oe=54C27378 little too warm to be a cool brown right?
err…pardon link error: https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSgP4olKy1KZGS7gHIutenD2E79J-AIKZ6BG2sMLsF0OuDQyC5F
Imogen, why does red warm purple is it because as an overtone it is warm?
Yes. Red can warm up a cool colour
Imogen, this is such a fantastic post. It is so nice to be able to see the color comparisons.
The only color that I still struggle with is blue, particularly in the tints collage. The warm blue tint still doesn’t seem any warmer to me than the cool blue tint, even though I can clearly see the subtle color difference. I tend to have trouble determining the “temperature” of various blues, much more so than with any other color.
Blue took me the longest to see the difference too
Thank you for mentioning that Imogen. Maybe I’ll eventually see blue temperatures more clearly. Your posts sure do help a lot!
I have a hard time with warm and cool yellows. Do you have any examples you could share for yellow?