Painting the Town Red

Sunday my inner muse came out to play in my art journal.......I sometimes think she a bit childish, and this page proves it....LOL!  Little die cut and stamped houses all in red for the Art Journal Journey challenge this month of 50 shades of red.  The paint can and paint brush were cut with my Cricut and little flower stickers just to make me happy!

I was curious to find out just what "Painting the Town Red" meant.  I found a lot of discussion about it on the internet, but this one kept popping up over and over........and I think it might be closer to the truth.

The expression is American slang meaning to go on a reckless debauch, to be wildly extravagant. Originally, the metaphor applied to bonfires painting the sky or scenery red. An old Irish ballad contains the lines: The beacon hills were painted red/ With many a fire that night. The immediate source of the phrase may be traced to the times when a Mississippi steamboat captain would want to defeat his rival. `Paint her, boys!' he would command his men as they heaped fuel upon the fires at night, casting a red glare upon the surrounding scenery. The phrase was helped into popularity by the fact that `to paint' (ie to paint the nose red) was an old slang term for drinking. [Source: Handybook of Literary Curiosities, by William S Walsh (Lippincott 1892).]

Peter Whitehead, Shaw Heath

So, what do you think?