05 August 2019

The Colour Red / Searching for Enlightment

I love red, but a little goes a long way. It is a hard colour to paint with.

Too much and it's garish, too dark and it can be dull. It is difficult to lighten as adding white turns it pink, and not many reds make a good pink. Adding yellow can lighten it, but this will send it into the orange tones. For me, there is always a lot of toing and froing with reds, to get that shade 'just right'.

 SEARCHING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT
by Marion Hedger
Acrylic on canvas
The Meanings of Red

Red is the color of extremes. It’s the color of passionate love, seduction, violence, danger, anger, and adventure. Our prehistoric ancestors saw red as the color of fire and blood – energy and primal life forces – and most of red’s symbolism today arises from its powerful associations in the past.
Red is also a magical and religious color. It symbolized super-human heroism to the Greeks and is the color of the Christian crucifixion. Red was almost as rare and as expensive as purple in ancient days – a fact that may explain its magic and power. Paradoxically, today’s intense red dyes come from crushed insects (the lac beetle and the cochineal).
Source Colour Matters

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