When starting a painting I always research my subjects as thoroughly as possible so that when I take away and add elements it makes sense. So here's a little background to go with this painting

My subject is dressed in red and red has a different meaning in the west, where it is tied to sensuality and sacrifice (maybe because of the fact that blood is red) but in Nepal it is the color of piety and purity. Monks drape themselves in red and the Nepali national flag is red. But there are different types of reds that are used. The Nepali flag uses crimson, to symbolize bravery and to harken back to the rhododendron, Nepal's national flower. Crimson was originally used to describe a dye made from the kermes bug (check out my podcast on this) and is a deeper red that leans purple at times is a deeper red. The color my subject would have used isn't that color. It would be vermillion, which is a red made from cinnabar originally, is a bright brilliant red.

So I decided to fuse the two together, and although I used other reds, I tried to play between a deeper purple red (I used permanent alizarin crimson) and cadmium free red. I find cadmium free red the closest match to vermillion and I can get a very smart intensity and mixing results when I use cad free red instead of vermillion. I think using those two colors created a mix of meaning behind the reds that I'm very happy with. Stay tuned for a video on the process. Available on my site later today, both prints and original.

Oil on canvas.