That Touch of Red

"By the Sea, Honfleur"
Pastel on canvas, 45 x 37 cm
Eval Gonzales, 1881

I have often noticed how one small splotch of red in a painting can make all the difference. A dot of red can attract the viewer's eye, and direct the visual journey through the painting. It can draw attention to a focal point. In a painting that is otherwise composed of cool or subtle colors, that bit of red can serve as a counterpoint that makes the other colors come alive. Given my fascination with red, I was interested to come across an essay about the Impressionist painter Eva Gonzales, and her use of red. It was entitled "Expressive Red". **

The top painting is a wonderful example of using red in a carefully managed, restricted way. The painting is mostly cool blue/green colors. But the painter picked out a detail of the clothing, two thirds of the way up the height of the canvas, and used red as a "revealer". Voila! The red bow

Color of the Year 2015

It's that time again: Pantone has announced its Color of the Year for 2015. And the winner is..."Marsala". Yes, the color of Marsala wine. Said to be rich and full-bodied, "naturally robust and earthy".

I have written before about Pantone's annual announcement, so if you have been reading, you know that I have mixed feelings about being told what color is "in".  I have read

Seeing Red

"Red Tablecloth"

20 x 20

(c) Lesley Powell

Recently I have been on a real rampage with the color red. I have always loved red, but have been somewhat fearful to feature it in my paintings, because it is notoriously difficult to work with. As painters would say, red is a "dark". It can be tricky to show contrast between red objects in light and red objects in shadow. For example, it can be hard to lighten red without having it turn pink or orange.

We can look to the great Renaissance masters for some truly inspiring work with red. Here is one of my favorites, an altarpiece by the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini:

My fascination with Bellini's reds led me to a little research. I learned that some of the beautiful reds used in the past were made from crushed bugs, specifically the cochineal beetle. These beetles were used centuries ago by ancient civilizations such as the Aztecs and the Phoenicians to create red pigments and dyes. In some cases, the insets were scratched from the twigs of trees with the fingernails. Ugh! Fortunately, we have it relatively easy nowadays, with pigments that we can simply squeeze from the tube. (Of course, just because we can obtain the basic hues from a tube doesn't mean that we would actually use the paint straight from the tube. Or that mixing the right red is easy). 

My recent adventure in red began with my apron, which hangs from a peg in my studio. The apron is certainly a more humble garment than those depicted by the Old Masters. For contrast, look what Titian, the master of color, did with the fabulous red robes of the Venetian Doges. Looking at these two images side by side is like going from the ridiculous to the sublime!

For anyone who is curious about such things, the two reds I use in my palette are cadmium red light and alizarin crimson (today's synthetic for Madder lake). For a comparison of the modern cadmium red paint to its historic precedent, vermilion, Margret Short has an excellent blog entry. And stay tuned for more work in the red family!

"Red Stripes and Spoon"

16 x 20