Where does the term "Let's Paint The Town Red" come from?

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 thatto 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).]

I read this in an article when I was looking for where the term originated from. I wanted to participate in the latest @lmac Challenge #77. I love making collages and am really excited to have to see how others change this base image! When I saw the image produced by @shaka, I thought it was a perfectly pretty, real picture.

But I was itching to jump in and add some unconventional colour to it. A lot of my style is "wildly extravagant" and I love exploring how I can express that in different media. I wanted this image to represent a WIP ( Work in Progress) of something that would be wildly extravagant.

I started by desaturating the base image that gave the feeling of 'unfilled in' canvas. I came across this image on pexels that I thought would be perfect because the top was slightly cut off. I also liked the idea of a couple secretly coming in at night and painting the town in some mad colours.

Source: Pexels

I felt like the picture needed a paintbucket so I found an image of one and added it to a corner, saturating it to a colour that went with the feel of the image.

Source: Unsplash

I like playing with a lot of texture, so I then added a background colour explosion. It's always hard to say where to stop with collages so I also added some background glitter with these two images, using masks wherever I needed to hide them.

Source: Pixabay

[Source: Pexels](https://www.pexels.com/photo/blue-starry-sky-in-dark-night-5641973/)

[Source: Pexels](https://www.pexels.com/photo/abstract-colorful-background-of-night-star-4021521/)

I considered it for a bit - I could go on, to be honest. But I reckon it's also nice to leave it slightly simple (Yes, this is my idea of simple!). I'm happy with where it is for now!

I used Adobe Photoshop to make this collage - I have a paid subscription.