MATLAB: Coloured checkerboard in Matlab

checkerboardcolorcolormaprepmatrgb

I'm using the Matlab checkerboard function to create a checkerboard. I'm interested in having the checkerboard as stripes (rather than checks) which I have figured out. I also want to change the colour of the stripes so that it's red and white or red and pink rather than black and white. I don't understand how to do this.
In the Matlab checkerboard function, black is defined as zeros(n) where n is the size and because the colour code for black in Matlab is [0 0 0], this works. But I don't get how to set this for it to produce red coloured tiles or stripes.
I have tried
red = repmat([1 0 0], 81,27)
to get red stripes for a checkerboard that I want with 81 squares. This produces an 81 x 81 matrix that looks like:
1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 .... 1 0 0
1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 .... 1 0 0
1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 .... 1 0 0
.
.
.
1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 .... 1 0 0
And it isn't red, it's just black and white stripes of varying thickness.
Can anyone help?!

Best Answer

red = repmat(uint8([1 0 0]), 81,27);
cmap = [0 0 0; 1 0 0];
image(red);
colormap(cmap);