Red On Red

2008 DGW HOLIDAY INVENTORY 12-29-08 (133)
What is it about red at the holidays? How it glows-electrifying.  It does not seem to matter whether the material is ribbon, leaves, ornament, twigs, flowers or paper, red warms up the holiday.  Those ridiculously large amaryllis blooms-I fall for them.  Pointsettias come in a variety of different designer colors, but what beats a well grown pointsettia loaded with red bracts? Red on red-even better.  Combining red materials of different textures will give your holiday that sumptuous look-all from the color. 

Dec 4b 006We decorated this ten foot tall tree  in a foyer entirely of red ornaments.  Large and small, glittered, shiny, matte-a range of reds in different textures. clusters of matte red. Under the tree, a cloud of red sinamay.  The repetition of red provides for plenty of holiday drama. 

DSC04242Red is beautiful with greens-whether they be the blue greens of Noble and Silver fir, or the green-green of balsam fir. As red has a darker value, massing it makes it read better from a distance. A smattering of red at a distance will look better if it is backed up with white, or a light green.    

2007 Payne, Lisa HOLIDAY 12-3-07 (3)When red ornament will be viewed from up close, small splashes work fine.. Wine red needs to be up close; at a distance it will look brown or black-brown.  For this reason, I think chartreuse green and wine red are particularly handsome together.  Red and blue/green-electric on a dull cloudy day. 

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Red combines amicably with any other holiday color.  Red, dark purple and gold has the look of a pageant. Integrifolia dyed red will bleed some if there is rain, or a thaw; care needs to be taken so it does not stain a terrace.   Red also fades in full sun; red twig dogwood is your best bet for good color retention all winter.  But for that fleeting moment that we have holidays, red is smashing.

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The Bulbeck lead pot is the anchoring ornament of this garden-summer and winter.  The mass of red integrifolia in a huge pot makes a strong central holiday statement; the satellite grape vine deer sport red holiday collars.  I am unable to resist decorating garden sculpture for the holiday season.  No doubt this is a character flaw on my part, but I do it anyway.  I like to see garden figures with hats and the dogs with collars.   

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Eucalyptus dyed red is a very dark red.  The science of this-the red dye over the green leaf muddies the color. Mixing colors opposite to each other on the color wheel produces various shades of mud.  If an orange terra cotta pot seems too orange, a green wash over top will tone it down. 

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Red  in all its sassy glory at the holidays gives me the same lift as red tulips do in the spring, and a new red jacket.  A gloomy time of year can be energized by red.

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 See what I mean??

Comments

  1. Your dog is adorable in all the red!

  2. What beautiful displays of red for the holiday.

  3. Our chicken coop has been glowing red every night from the heat lamp, and we were just thinking about how best to turn it into a holiday decoration for the neighborhood! Nice post…

  4. captain wacky says

    yo!! milo!! you are such a ham!

  5. Sheryl Magaro says

    Nice pictures 🙂 And Mylo makes us smile:-)

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