Tag: colour

Life in Colour

Bonus Purple.

“Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, that liberal shepards give a grosser name, but which cold maids do Dead Men’s Fingers call”

Shakespeare, Hamlet

The wild ‘Early Purple Orchid’ (Orchis mascula) often arrives with the bluebells and its classic colour is magenta – a reddish purple – however occasionally white and pale pink flower spikes can be found. The leaves are are shiny with dark purple blotches.

In the quote above, the Early Purple Orchid is the “long purple” of Ophelia’s garland, as referred to by Gertrude in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Have You any purples In Your neighbourhood?

Life in Colour

To find out more about this year’s photo challenge here on Travel Words, please read this post.

This month we will be looking for Purple. A secondary colour made from red and blue, though you can find many different shades of purple. Try to stay clear of violet though as that will be making its own appearance. Although found in nature in shades of crocuses, lilacs, and irises look for the bruised colours in a sunrise or sunset, an indigo sea, a full moon in an inky sky. The darkness of a red wine, a rich velvet curtain or a starling’s wing.

“Colours are the smiles of Nature.
When they are extremely smiling,
and break forth into other beauty besides,
they are her laughs;
as in the flowers.”

~Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist (1889)

What purples can you find in Nature?

Life in Colour

Bonus Pinks

I couldn’t finish this month’s colour challenge without one of my favourite April flower – the tulip.

This is a late flowering tulip called ‘Greenland‘ – an orchid rose-pink with green stripes.

(Coincidentally, this month is ending with a pink super moon which occurred on the one night that we had cloud cover! I did see it floating in and out of the clouds looking nice and big and not in the least bit pink! Apparently named after a native herb known as creeping phlox is coming into its pink bloom. (Native American))

This is the last week for the colour pink so get yours in before Sunday.

Life in Colour

To find out more about this year’s photo challenge here on Travel Words, please read this post.

This month we will be looking for Pink. A delicate colour that means sweet, nice, playful, cute, romantic, charming, feminine, and tenderness, is associated with bubble gum, flowers, babies, little girls, cotton candy, and sweetness.

Or sometimes a bright, in your face, neon pink.

Miradouro de Santa Luzia and Bougainvillea (Lisbon)
Where have you seen pink?

Life in Colour

A bonus Suffolk Pink

In true Suffolk countryside you will find Wyken Hall Gardens and Vineyard, home to Kenneth and Carla Carlisle. The 400 year old Suffolk barn houses the Leaping Hare country store, which sells some very beautiful wares along with their award winning wine, a café  and the Leaping Hare Vineyard restaurant.

The house itself has a copper red lime wash which is what ‘Suffolk Pink’ was in Elizabethan times. The southern veranda has five lovely blue rocking chairs brought over from Mississippi and is shaded by columns of Spartan apples, espaliered high so they do not block the view from the house.

Can you find any pink buildings?