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?