Searching for Color

How do I Describe That Color, Again?

The world is full of hues.  These splendid nuances of rainbows surrounding our world in a plethora of refracted light, the absence of light, and the way the eye contours it to make it aesthetic.  We gaze upon paintings, fabrics, textiles, money, flags, elements of nature, particles of dust floating in a nimbus of light, the way a person’s iris appears in sunlight or the way moonlight shimmers across the eye’s surface, changing its curvature and colors in light filtered darkness.  We use the hues of shadow and the profile of light to describe what we see.  But how do we find the words to express green in all its forms?  How do you describe the way something is opalescent when you don’t have quite the right word?  Hence, my search for color.

Have you ever found yourself working through a scene and there is so much color in your mind?  Maybe the drapes are yellow, but that’s not quite what you want to convey to the reader?  Maybe their canary or even gold.  Maybe there a mixture of golden diamond shapes on a field of forest green.  Maybe the green is more of an emerald or olive.  Maybe the carpet is a match for the green in the drapes, but you don’t want to keep saying green or emerald.  Maybe the chairs complement the gold in the drapes, but what if the color isn’t quite gold, maybe not quite canary, or even yellow.  Now, what do you do?  Are there any synonyms for yellow?  Maybe the only ways to describe it is with yellow, but that seems so bland, so nondescript to you.  Will your readers understand what you’re trying to say?  So, you head off to Google, which is more than helpful.  Google is too helpful.  there are more than one-hundred million results for the search keywords “synonyms for yellow,” and half of them have nothing to do with the color yellow, synonyms, or what you’re looking for anyway.  The first few links you come upon appear helpful, but nope, they’re not quite right either.  Then, you see the questions other people have asked.  Usually, you like those when you’re looking for something.  Majority of the time, they are helpful, but maybe not this time.  You skip by them in search of just the right color.  You’re on a mission now.

Now, I’m a little more than frustrated and stop looking for the right shade of yellow.  I’m not even really looking for a shade per say as the right word to go in this scene.  What word for yellow will make my piece more poetic or maybe flow better?  Most people know what yellow looks like, right?  Most people are aware that canary yellow is a bright yellow that can resemble a lighter shade of gold, but what if I want something just a little different.  Something that looks more like a gemstone, something a little mor subdued and conveys as sense of loveliness that’s just not appreciated when I say canary yellow.  Okay, the search is on, and I’ve probably seen the word I’m looking for ten times by now, but it’s the principle of the thing.  there has to be a book, website, app, or something by now that has the different names for colors somewhere.  If I can’t find one, I’m going to not only be disappointed, but I’m going to damn well find a way to create one.

And the search began.  I started out on Google, my, and probably everyone else’s, favorite search engine.  There are approximately twenty-seven million results for the search terms “books describing colors.”  I find several websites promising.  I bookmark them and continued on my search.  It took me five hours, and I still didn’t quite find what I wanted.  I clicked on several websites.  I booked marked even more, and I bought a book on Audible and another on Kindle before I called my best friend in Macon.  Of course, I’ve been looking for the perfect book and website for hours, and she goes right to the book I’m sure I overlooked twelve times.

“Here’s a Kindle book right here, Nell,” she said.

“What book?” I ask, ready to scream as if the hounds of hell were after me.

“It’s called How to Describe Colors: A Comprehensive Collection of Color Names & Color Similes by. Amy Pogue.”  She sent me the link in my email.  Let me just tell you that when I saw this, I was skeptical.  I had been through the gambit and hadn’t found what I was looking for.  Primarily, I was looking for a thesaurus of sorts, and that’s exactly what my best friend, Tina Owens, found for me.  I got lucky.  I still had digital credit on my Kindle account, so I got to buy the book for only $0.99.  I sounded like a toddler, cooing and clapping my hands.  If I could have, I probably would have been jumping up and down too.

While this book was the answer to my color description prayers, that’s not to say there were not several great websites out there.  I found one called 204 Words that Describe Color, 1,000 + Ways to Describe Color, and Master List of Color Names and Color Descriptions.   Of course, there were so many more out there, but these are the ones I bookmarked for my very own.  So, go out there and find your color and fulfill your descriptive dreams.

Till next we meet, stay well and keep creating!

CSA