13 Comments
User's avatar
Dr Lily Dunn's avatar

Oh yes, all that wasted time. So many weekends!!! And all the more if you’d had a beautiful blue bedroom to lie in. I know this feeling of wanting to fill the days, use up all the hours. And I love the colour!

Expand full comment
Anna Wharton's avatar

I think so many of us are familiar with this feeling…

Expand full comment
sam baker's avatar

Those blue walls are gorgeous. I’m very cowardly with colour - in clothes and decor - but you’ve got me thinking.

Expand full comment
Anna Wharton's avatar

Ooh you should think! I love colour!!!

Expand full comment
Lindsay Johnstone's avatar

I am as fascinated by blue as you, Anna. So much so that I've been called boring so many times by the girls when this is the only answer I can give to the question, 'What's your favourite colour?' Your room looks absolutely divine. Sumptuous and tonally complex, like all good blues. You'll do amazing work in there, I'm sure of it.

Expand full comment
Anna Wharton's avatar

Have you read Bluets, Lindsay? You must!

Expand full comment
Lindsay Johnstone's avatar

I haven't, but now I will!

Expand full comment
Sarah Robertson's avatar

Ooooh I’d love to quote this piece in an upcoming post about colour 😃💛

Expand full comment
Anna Wharton's avatar

Ooh please do!

Expand full comment
Jo Thompson's avatar

I love that you’re writing about blue! - There are so many words for blue. Some are words in themselves; some take the names from the objects or places which created them through geographic, natural, artistic inspiration. Sky blue, duck egg blue, navy, royal blue, turquoise, petrol, teal, powder blue, midnight blue, ultramarine, cobalt, indigo, Prussian blue, Egyptian blue, woad, electric blue, cerulean, Scotch blue, China blue, azure, Flax-flower, Berlin blue, Verditter blue, Antwerp blue, cornflower blue, Venetian blue, sapphire. There are more.

What each of these shades, tones and hues (more on the definition of these another time) mean to each of us can differ wildly. Eg Adélaïde Labille-Guillard’s self-portrait - What colour would each of us say is the dress of her student seated at the easel? Ice blue? Steel? Or perhaps it’s grey?

Some of these words above for blue are familiar, some less so. Some unknown. I desperately feel that there’s a need to air these words, to bring them out of hibernation and use them to extend our vocabulary for colour and create the ability to describe that for which we have no words. If we have a word for an object, a feeling, a colour, we can identify that item both in speech and in writing, we can convey our message and create a picture for others. The picture becomes reality and the message continues to travel across minds and validates what might otherwise disappear.

Expand full comment
Anna Wharton's avatar

Love this Jo! Thank you so much for commenting and I agree with you wholeheartedly 🩵💙🙏🏼

Expand full comment
Lindsay Johnstone's avatar

This is such a brilliant comment. I want to write all these words down and hunt them down...

Expand full comment
Anna Wharton's avatar

It is, isn’t it? Brilliant Jo!

Expand full comment