Huesday - Tuesday / Red

"Seeing Red"
My Inspiration Board on Pinterest

I started a Red Board today over at Pinterest. Red is one of my favorite colors and yet I have done boards for pink, blue, orange, and yellow before I even thought of tackling red. I think I prefer red off-line more than on. It is so strong and often hard to photograph.  I have found some yummy examples though.  Check out my pins and follow me on My Seeing Red Board.

I am still waiting for my book about the history of red to arrive from Amazon ... maybe next week I can share some facts on pigments and dyes with you.

My own thoughts on The Color Red:
Red can be a sledge hammer and honestly who does not want to throw down a sledge hammer every once in awhile. Red is an exclamation point, it seldom whispers, it is full of attitude and strength. You can try and class it up a bit with white, grey and black, but at the end of the day it is still going to be red. You never have to wonder about it ... it will not pretend. As gregarious and overly demonstrative as it can  be ... red will never cheat on you.

I use a lot of red and warm tones in my work.  Often clients will request reds when ordering a pet portrait for a man. It is a masculine color I guess, although I think of it as pretty gender neutral.

Artist Quotes About Red:

"A thimbleful of red is redder than a bucketful. " - Henri Matisse

"I love red so much that I almost want to paint everything red."--Alexander Calder

"My mother warned me to avoid things coloured red." -  Claes Oldenburg

"Red protects itself. No colour is as territorial. It stakes a claim, is on the alert against the spectrum." - Derek Jarman

" I want a red to be sonorous, to sound like a bell. If it doesn't turn out that way, I add more reds and other colors until I get it." - Pierre-Auguste Renoir

"You can't go wrong with the use of red; every painting should have red in it." - George De Groat

"A good painter needs only three colours: black, white and red." - Titian

"What I love most about red is green." - Rebecca Collins