I really saw red today, after queueing up for half an hour under the pouring rain to get Caterina her passport—only to be told that the office where we had been directed was the wrong one. So I will have to do it all over again tomorrow, dragging poor Caterina with me to yet another office (because they “have to see her”). It is the second time we fail to get the passport application done thanks to misleading official information, so I was a bit put out.

Since I was seeing red anyway, I started snapping red pictures for the challenge as soon as I got home. The pictures aren’t much to look at—I have a problem with composition in photos that I don’t seem to have when papercrafting—but at least my mood improved considerably!

Ephemera in red

Day two of the I Saw Red challenge and it is starting to work! I am actively looking around for patches of red, and starting to think how I could use them in my crafting. Good.

What struck me the most today is how drops of rain pooled and shone against the red petals of the geraniums (or are they pelargoniums? I always get confused) in my window boxes. It was a splash of colour against a plumbeous sky.

Raindrops on red

Sara Duckett of Sadie Olive designs is running a fun I Saw Red challenge this week—post a photograph with something red in it as many times as you can (thanks to Artsymama for pointing me in Sara’s direction). Now I have never had much use for red. Truth be told, I don’t much like it—it is too bold, too bright, too much. So this sounds like a great way to stretch myself and broaden my colour palette. My first entry for the challenge is, predictably, a picture of Nicco (who loves red and has plenty of red clothes).

Nicco among the shrubs in Sardinia

I rather like how his red t-shirt stands out among the ochre and dull green of the Mediterranean scrubland around him…