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| RED IS MY LANGUAGE (art by Hallelujah Truth) |
In my box of watercolor pencils, my beloved tools, I possess many REDS! Their names dance along their sides singing to me like studious German women visiting Paris cabarets. Here are a few to illustrate:
Karmin Rosa
Dunkelrot
Kamiumrot Mittel
Scharlachrot
Pompejanischrot
To begin a drawing, I often pick out a more subtle red to stroke out the draft, to caress an image into being. She might be called Venentian or Indian Red. Or I might invite Sanguine. Perhaps their cousins may be summoned like Terracotta or Burnt Ochre. Whoever assists me at this stage melts away with water and becomes something more or less as other colors join us.
If you haven't dabbled in the pages of Color: A Natural History of the Palette, you might enjoy learning about their histories. The chapter on RED that discusses in detail the use of the female cochineal beetle for obtaining a vibrant RED (that is even used in Cherry Coke), also gives broad, general meaning of RED:
"For many cultures red is both death and life--a beautiful and terrible paradox. In our modern language or metaphors, red is anger, it is fire, it is stormy feelings of the heart, it is love, it is the god of war, and it is power. These are concepts that the ancient color coders understood very well. In Comanche the same word--ekapi--is used for color, circle, and red. Which suggests that in that Native American culture at least it was seen as something fundamental, encompassing everything."
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| I SPEAK HEART! (art by Hallelujah Truth, from this blog entry) |
Yes, ekapi! COLOR. CIRCLE. RED. Yes! RED is more than my language. It is who I am and it is the realm I inhabit.
That's Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me and tell me about your favorite color and why that is so!
Acknowledgment: Thanks go to Jes Gordon for writing the first Monday Funday blog prompt for the Facebook Group, The Daily Creative Practice. Consider joining our group and participating in our Monday Fundays.
