Red roses are one of the most difficult flowers to photograph, but one of the most exciting subjects to paint.

One of the reasons is that there are so many lovely and different red paints to use.

Red paints can be warm or cool, opaque or transparent and range from bright fire-engine and almost orange to softer pinker reds tending towards mauve.

Take a good look at a red rose and you will notice some of these colours.

And colour is just one factor.  Red roses tend to have the most velvety texture and the secret to paint velvety texture is just that, a secret!

Here are some of the red paints in my paintbox:

Cadmium Red: Available in light, medium, and deep (or dark). Very strong, warm, opaque reds.

Alizarin Crimson: A dark, transparent, cool red with a slight tendency towards blue/purple.

Rose Madder: A distinctive, transparent red. Made from rose madder root.

Permanent Rose or Quinacridone Red. A pinky rose red which can be mixed with ultramarine to get a brilliant purple and with Payne’s grey for a dull purple.

Venetian Red: A warm, earthy red with a slight tendency towards orange.

Naphthol Crimson: An intense, transparent mid to deep red.

Perylene Red: A dark violet red pigment.

Pyrrole Red:  A warm mid-range opaque red.

Here’s some of the red roses is my collection, the full collection can be seen here