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Guess what my favorite color is!  That’s right – red!  As long as I can remember, I have loved red in all its shades, from the palest pink to deep burgundy. The color of extremes, red represents love and hate, life and death, sin and purity.  The color red has so much energy, potency and vitality it’s an instant pick- me-up. Designer Bill Blass once said “Red is the ultimate cure for sadness.”  I do agree. 

 

My latest painting “Belle Rouge” (meaning “beautiful red” in French) features Mandevilla blossoms from vines growing in my back yard.  I paired these flowers with (what else?) a red scarf.  (Too much red? Impossible!)   The Mandevilla flowers also made an appearance in another of my paintings “So Very Red”.  My Mandevilla vines begin blooming in Spring, and by Summer they decorate the patio cover in our back yard.  The blooms are such a rich deep, stunning red, I find it impossible to resist painting them. 

 

When I first started painting, I painted only in watercolor.  One of the frustrations I had with watercolor was that it is quite difficult to get a deep shade of red.  

"Teatime Strawberries", watercolor

Watercolors are mostly transparent, and when a transparent red is washed on white paper, at best it shows up as a deep pink.  In order to get an intense scarlet red, I had to apply many layers of red watercolor, drying between layers. This can be time consuming and tricky to do without lifting the color and streaking.  Despite the challenges, I did manage to paint many watercolors featuring my favorite red pigment – Alizarin Crimson.  

                                               "Pomodori", watercolor 

The color red is one of the oldest colors used in painting – going back to the cave paintings in the Stone Age. Various materials have been used over the years to produce red – ochre, lead, cinnabar, and others.  Many of these pigments were toxic, and most were not lightfast.  One fun fact about the history of red in painting – Vincent Van Gogh actually loved vibrant red, but you may not have noticed much of the color in his artwork.  That’s because the red pigments he used faded badly over time, resulting in very pale versions of the color in his paintings.  His purples have become blues, pinks became browns, and the pure reds he used are now a faded version of their former color.

 

Thankfully, today’s red pigments are colorfast as well as being incredibly rich, deep and vibrant.  Almost as vibrant and deep as my Mandevilla blossoms, which I am sure will continue to be one of my favorite subjects, year after year. I’m already thinking of different ways to use these red beauties in future still life paintings!