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Norrette Moore

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Interesting point.  I can perceive the difference between warm & cold reds, same for yelows, but I struggle with blues. For example, I understand, ultramarine and cobalt are either side of the criteria, but I can't "see" it.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Martin, I don't think there's any need for you to start caring a string of beans about this, to be honest!  In abstract painting, as in figurative, warm and cool - which are at best almost entirely subjective - are useful constructs for colour mixing purposes: i.e. some sense of warm and cool helps to choose a colour scheme that will conduce to those feelings - and feelings is basically what this is about.  I don't believe abstract painters need the colour wheel = but then I don't think figurative painters do either.  The only reason I took an interest in the video under discussion was that I felt it was extremely confusing in that it contradicted the received opinion of just about anyone who has ever tried to help people learn how to paint: the fact that the artist who takes this view can still paint perfectly well does rather suggest that it doesn't much matter if you know what you're doing; but it might matter to those who look to these demos, seek guidance, and then find two people saying entirely different things about the subject they're trying to study.   I do wonder if Rembrandt bothered himself about these things - or if Picasso did either.  The colour wheel has been around for a long time, and there are very complex forms of it - it can be taken to ludicrous extremes, and complex or basic, my personal view is that it's actually about as useful as a rubber ladder....   Complementaries matter - for abstract artists and figurative ones equally: but there's no need to slot them into a wagon-wheel.  Human beings love to complicate things ... that might not do any real harm in itself, but students do worry themselves, or many do, about rules, do's and don'ts, and conflicting information: so let us just be consistent.  
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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The other bit of bunk we might as well get rid of is the idea of "tertiary" colours - i.e. mixes of more than two primaries: in practical terms, it just isn't helpful.  Plus, when he devised the colour wheel in 1666, Newton was interested in displaying the colour spectrum - not in helping artists to mix colours, even if they had the colours on his wheel, which of course they hadn't .... there's a bit of difference between the colour spectrum and actual paint.  
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Paul (Dixie) Dean

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Like a lot of people I bought a colour wheel when I started to paint , though it would make things much easier ohh no it didn’t.  I soon became more confused that’s easy I hear you say , true but the using the wheel made it worse I ended up with colours o didn’t particularly like or want in my paintings.  Decided the bin was the best place for it along with some of my paintings as well , started to explore the different colours I could make quite a bit messy at first but soon found what in liked but were the paintings any better not much . 
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Carol .

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Didn't use a colour wheel when I first started painting, but was interested in the cool and warm colour pallet, which I found useful when learning from other artists either from books and or dvd's when they mentioned why they used a particular colour mix to express mood and the temperature of a place, time of day and season.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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Carol -but did you find the colour wheel (of which anyway there are multiple iterations)  really helped you with any of that?  
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Carol .

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I should have worded my reply a little better, Robert. I didn't use a colour wheel, but did find the colour charts provided by Windsor and Newton etc that explained opacity of paints and which paints are cool/warm. On times I forget this, to my dismay. I say this, as different areas have their own colour. I painted a house, here in the valley and the houses here are predominantly grey, I painted it using warm tones as it was a sunny day when I took the reference photo and it looks too Mediterranean. This is something I keep in mind, now. 
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