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Red - A colourful workshop

Written by Jenny Goodwin

Margaret talked about RED being opposite to green on the colour chart and how powerful RED can be, even just a small amount. RED is also the colour of celebration and can be many different shades. There are a yellow based REDS, blue based REDS and black based RED and many in between.

When using RED it should be mixed with other colours for balance. Margaret did 5 arrangements to illustrate this.
Firstly, in a black nageire container a large RED painted hydrangea, RED plastic- coated twisted wire and dark leaf made a bold display.

Then in a white container RED geranium (big red) with variegated walking iris leaves, RED mesh and geranium leaves with dark markings.

In a stunning orangey RED boat shaped resin container, Margaret used various shaped green leaves, some with stripes, mottled etc in an interesting way, then a flash of red crucifix orchid . Again in a black boat container. plain green walking iris leaves, geranium leaf and 2 RED anthurium flowers. Her final arrangement was in a small RED wavy glass bottle with a dark blackish RED camellia, a leaf and finished off with a sprig of delicate white flowering spirea.

Margaret had shown us how to break up the powerful red with greens and other material. We then did our own expressions in RED. We had fun and all so different !!

As Margaret was explaining the power of even a small bit of RED, it reminded me of a Mondrian painting of blue and yellow amongst black lines and down in bottom left was a small RED box, The power of that RED was huge, but just a small amount, just as Margaret explained.