Monday, July 13, 2020

Hibiscus, impossible red?

Hibiscus have brilliant scarlet red flowers that blossom during the day and close up at night. This plant came back to life in the spring, it had suffered all winter indoors, loosing all its leaves and flowers. It miraculously started making leaves and then these big blossoms in the summer! To capture the moment I took a photo with my smart phone and was disappointed with the result, the velvety scarlet petals were a bleached-orange colour. Then I tried taking a picture with my real camera next but got a similar result. So I tried a painting instead, for the flower I used pyrrole red vermillion and benzimida orange to get the brilliant colour of the flower. The reason for the bad photo could be that I don't know how to use my camera, or, that the brilliant red colour is hard for the camera's digital device to interpret. MacEvoy on Handprint.com pointed out the number of colours in the real world greatly exceed the number of colours that can be reproduced digitally. Mind you, the paint I used could be scanned and shown on your screen! Mysteries of the modern world. 5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, July 2020

Here was the photo, the red appears to be more blueish, and the shadow more faded and yellowish than it actually was:

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