Seeing red

I was working towards a group exhibition of still-life paintings and thought to challenge myself by painting deep red roses in a silver bowl. One of the things I like best about still life is that you can completely control your composition. It can take hours to get the elements chosen, arranged just right, and make the lighting behave for you.

I knew my painting was to be about the richly coloured red roses. For contrast, I chose a light drapery background, which even in shadow, would be about a 7 on a value scale. I liked the contrasting brightness of the silver bowl that reflected everything around it, including me. So I wore something black and moved some things around in my studio to control what was in the reflection. I wanted the