harvesting colour – memorable colour
I am starting to think about some of the colours I hope to capture in my dyeing projects. In my reading I have discovered that plant colours come from three groups of plant pigments:
- the porphyrins – includes chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants that enables photosynthesis to occur
- the carotenoids – includes the yellows of carrots and the red lycopene of tomatoes
- the flavonoids – the yellows of flower petals and the red, blue and purple anthocyanins of strawberries and blueberries
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In my poems, I want to portray these colours with words. A quick look in the thesaurus shows how many words we have for the various colours:
- green: emerald, sage, verdigris, malachite, beryl, aquamarine, chartreuse, lime, olive …
- yellow: ivory, lemon, saffron, gold, sallow, buff …
- red: scarlet, carmine, vermillion, crimson, ruby, garnet, maroon, brick, rust …
- blue: azure, phthalo, cerulean, indigo, sapphire, turquoise, watchet, navy, teal …
- purple: lilac, violet, mauve, magenta, heliotrope, plum, lavender …
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
nichepoetryandprose 
This might sound a little strange, but I love reading the names of paint colors while browsing the sample cards provided by paint stores. Sometimes the images evoked make me feel as if I am reading poetry!
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Barbara Rodgers
March 23, 2014 at 1:26 pm
Hi Barbara. I know what you mean. Sometimes they sound so tranquil, or joyous, or inspiring. Just another example of poetry in our daily lives. Jane
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jane tims
March 25, 2014 at 5:46 pm