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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833 |
(or "colors" for them thar US'ns in the crowd)
I was driving in the country round about here recently, and all the lilacs are in bloom. This gave rise to some meandering in my brain about colours....Why do some things become colours, and not others? how does it happen? does the colour ever precede - and therefore give the name to - the thing?
Of course, there are some "pure" colour names: the primaries of red, blue and yellow; the secondaries of green, orange and purple. Some other colours are, to the best of my knowledge, "just" colours: brown, grey, mauve, pink, scarlet, crimson. But there are all kinds of shades of colour (and meaning).
Who decided that pale purple should be "lilac"? And when you talk about "coffee" (more often "coffee-coloured" actually), do you mean before or after you've added the cream? And what about cream? and ivory? periwinkle? cinnamon? wine? burgundy? rose? saffron? ochre? lemon? peach?
How does something give its name to a colour? by being the Platonic ideal of that shade of colour? (like a lemon? being the lemon-est?)
Gad, lookit the time. I KNEW I shouldn't return to AWADtalk!
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
I recall reading of a young man, blind since birth, who was stunned to discover that the fruit we call an orange is in fact orange in colo(u)r.
Which usage of that word came first: as a colo(u)r, or as a fruit?
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
I found this.. which i love.. but i realized, i was really thinking of an other poem.. maybe i can find it.. a something tells me its by Christina Rossetti..
but for colors, this is beautiful!
Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.
I ’LL tell you how the sun rose,—
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets, 5
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”
But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile 10
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while
Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars, 15
And led the flock away.
and amethyst reminds me.. (please help whitmen..)
the Paul Simon song, For Emily, When i Find Her..
What a dream i had, dress in organdy,
of smoky amethyst--
well something like that..only better! i remember it as filled with colors.. but i suspect is not filled, but just a few wonderful colors..like smokey amethyst!
its an old one..from the days of Simon and Garfunkle.
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
what a dream I had
pressed in organdy
clothed in crinoline of smoky burgundy
softer than the rain
i wandered empty streets down
past the shop displays
i heard cathedral bells
tripping down the alley ways
as I walked on
and when you ran to me
your cheeks flushed with the night
we walked on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight
i held your hand
and when i awoke and felt you warm and near
i kissed your honey hair with my grateful tears
oh, i love you
oh, i love you
There ya go of Troy
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Re: Does the colour ever precede - and therefore give the name to - the thing?
Once-- at least! Compounds formed from the element chromium are brilliantly colored green, red and yellow. So Vauquelin, a french chemist who first described the pure element, named it chrome, after the greek khroma, color! (the pure element is a greyish white.) its also used as a mordant when dying cloth.
it was soon latinize to chromium.
chrome green is a rich medium green (racing green it is sometimes called-- similar to the green silks worn by War Emblems jockey)
Chrome yellow is a bright, brilliant yellow (safety yellow) and is often seen in underpaints or primers, since it offers rust protection.
chrome red is slightly orangish red, not a pure red, and most certainly not a blue red.
the color sense of khroma is also used in commercial words, like koda-chrome for kodak brand of color film.
chromogen was a term for a small substantance that was or could be pigmented with dye, and chromosomes were first seen because they absorbed a dye!
lots of other chrome/chroma words all to do with color.
most art stores would have these pigments, if you wanted to see them first hand.
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833 |
Colours in art stores do fascinate me. I worked (very briefly) in an art supply store and found the names of the colours very romantic or fascinating (or both, sometimes!): naples yellow, alizerin crimson, and I wish I could remember more of them - most seemed to be very poetic.
I always enjoy looking through crayon and pencil-crayon colours, to see the names the creators have come up with to describe the colours. In the big packs you almost always had gold, silver, bronze, copper, ochre, burnt umber, etc. "Peach" seems to have replaced "skin" (certainly more politically correct, and I suspect more accurate, period). Even black, in some packs, is not merely black but rather "midnight black."
Is "steel blue" more of a grey colour, really?
and howcum "lilac" describes a pale purple - mauve really - when there are dark purple, and white, lilacs, as well as the pretty, pale, in-between ones?
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear MG: the craziest colour names are those given automobiles. The first car I
owned was "Arabian Meadow Green". I doubt that there are many green meadows
in Arabia. I've never seen a picture of grass there. And I think the etymology of
"meadow" is "ow"="cultivated field" and "mead"="mowed" I doubt that there is
much hay made in Arabia. They raise plenty of horses, but I wonder what they
graze on.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
1. There can never be too many tints, tones, or shades of purple for me!
2. I will definetly take the time to watch the sun set tonight.
3. Y'all make me want to take out the brushes and colo(u)rs and get started on something today!
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833
old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 833 |
Y'all make me want to take out the brushes and colo(u)rs and get started on something today!O wow, I hope you DO! perhaps when the sun is setting! I'm with you on the purple - my favourite colour. This all reminds me of an inneresting colour chart a friend sent me - it purports to indicate what you're like in bed  depending on what your favourite colour is. All I can say is, I humbly submit that they're wrong when it comes to purple....! I will try to find it and post it here, if anyone's interested. Bill, you make an interesting point about car colours. I've no idea what they dreamed up for mine (it's a very bright blue and I bought it second-hand), but an old boyfriend of mine drove a car that the manufacturers, in their infinite wisdom, had seen fit to paint a colour they called "rusty red." When I started going out with this fellow, the car was badly rusted, so when he told me it was a rusty red car, I thought he meant it was a rusty, red car!
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Re: 3) Y'all make me want to take out the brushes and colo(u)rs and get started on something today!
my favorite medium, bar none, is water soluable pencils..
they are a fortune, but worth every penny.
they look like regular colored pencils, and draw like colored pencils.. ( which are a much easier medium than either crayons or paint)
but then, you take a paint brush, and when you wet the pencil marks, they melt into a water color paint on the spot! a light going over page with the pencil, and a wet brush, you have a wash more pigment, less water, more control.. and you don't have to wet all the pigment, and you can go over it again, to add stuff.. (so a red scalloped circle becomes a fluid red, which can be reworked, again.. wet or dri.
barely damp brushes, gently blur colors. and the pencils make it easy to blend. you can get increadible water color effects.. with very little skill! (don't go in an art store for 24 hours now, or you'll look at them, and try them, and then, you'll buy them!
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