The image that came up for me in Paris has stayed with me. “La Vie en Rose” (life in pink), which basically means seeing life through rose colored glasses and having no regrets.

So thinking it may be difficult for me to change from my usual preferred palette of red-orange and blue-green, I got out all of my reds, the unbleached titanium and the titanium white and just started putting different combinations of pink and red on the canvas. I used alizarin crimson, quinacridone red, pyro red and cadmium red light in all kinds of mixtures.

I can’t think of Edith Piaf who sang “La Vie en Rose” without thinking of all the pain in her life, so I had to put in some black. I like to use black in my paintings because I think it is dramatic. Like some painters, I could have mixed my own dark color, but I prefer all that I can do with black.

In color psychology, pink is a sign of hope. It is a positive color inspiring warm and comforting feelings, a sense that everything will be okay.

According to color psychology, “a combination of red and white, pink contains the need for action of red, helping it to achieve the potential for success and insight offered by white. It is the passion and power of red softened with the purity, openness and completeness of white. The deeper the pink, the more passion and energy it exhibits.”

I enjoyed doing this painting and I have started on the second similar painting.

I would love your critique. Would you do anything different?