sandalone matplotlib colorbar

standalone_colorbar.py

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_axes([0.05, 0.80, 0.9, 0.1])

cb = mpl.colorbar.ColorbarBase(ax, orientation='horizontal', 
                               cmap='gist_ncar',
                               norm=mpl.colors.Normalize(0, 10),  # vmax and vmin
                               extend='both',
                               label='This is a label',
                               ticks=[0, 3, 6, 9])

plt.savefig('just_colorbar', bbox_inches='tight')

As I answered on StackOverflow