The color wheel is split in half between warm and cool colors, which are pairs of complementary colors. Conventional wisdom groups these into two broad color families. The warm colors are red, orange, and yellow. The cool colors are blue, green, and purple.

By dividing the color wheel in half, the painters’ color wheel differentiates warm and cool colors. The warm and cool color wheel denotes that half of it is warm and the other half is cool. Warm colors include red, orange, and yellow, similar to sunsets’ colors. Green, blue, and purple are cool colors that remind us of the sky, oceans, and nature.

If you draw a line down the center of the color wheel, you can easily identify which are which. The colors on the right side are warm, and the shades on the left are classified as cool. Red, orange, and yellow are considered warm hues, and green, blue, and violet are regarded as cool tones.

Reds, yellows, oranges and beige are warm. Blues, greens and grays are cool. If you look at the color wheel, warm colors are on one side of the wheel, and the cools reside on the other. Where they meet, they mix, forming some hybrids, like green and purple. Those colors can be warmer or cooler depending on their mix.

If you look at a color wheel, you’ll see a clear distinction between warm and cool colors. The warm colors are grouped on one side of the color wheel, from yellow to red-violet. These colors are bold, bright, and eye-catching. And on the other side of the color wheel, you’ll see the cool colors. These range from green through to purple.