Sunday, September 20, 2015
Detail
Choose a color and describe a scene using at least three varieties of that color. Try to mix details of landscape and people. Share your description with the class on the blog, and comment on at least one other blog post (effects created through the use of detail, effectiveness...). Due by Friday, September 25th (both your blog post and your reaction to another post).
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"When I got into my sister's room, the electric green blinded me for a second. Then, I saw my father, sitting on her emerald-coloured bed. The green in its eyes was of a different shade. I would've said midnight green, but the colour didn't really matter at this point. The loss, and despair were all you could see and I knew the hope you usually see in a bright green will soon vanished: I knew something terrible had happened."
ReplyDeleteI really like your description. I think that the "blinding green" at the beginning gives perfectly the ambiance and atmosphere of the scene. We can really feel the chock here and we know something is going to change. I also like the fact that the description of the eyes puts us face to face with the emotion of the father... the shift of the color of the eyes express a feeling and reflects the change in the atmosphere and in the "story" : something happened , we can see it through the change of the eyes' color! I like that idea.
DeleteIt was summer. The sun was a bright, almost blinding yellow. The people, with their golden skin, seamed to be its reflection. Their amber words were soothing, and nothing mattered.
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that each different variety of yellow gives off a different feeling. The first yellow is blinding, powerful, mighty; the golden is more round and it makes tanning sound better :)
DeleteI love the impression the last variety conveys ; amber is warm and the association with the word soothing is complementary, and amplifies its heating, healing, comforting connotation. The last sentence is the one I preferred in general, because of the association of the "words" with a colour and the "nothing mattered" that I appreciate a lot, for an unknown reason ;)
I wish you'd have tried to make your description a little bit richer, a short story, maybe, as the others did but it's not bad.
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DeleteWe were getting back home after my sister's recital. The red trees' falling leaves made me think of my bristling pink-cheeked sister at the beginning of her performance. We were together now, heading toward the blinding sun, low on the horizon, infusing the clouds with its coral flavor.
ReplyDeleteThough your description is quite short, I find it really interesting how you mixed nature, with a person but also with the sun (universal scale). From the very first words, we get the feeling of warmth and security, as well as the importance of family. It seems as if we could hear the music of the scene, I can easily picture the scene in my mind. Moreover, with the word 'infusing', we really get the peacefulness and happiness (images of complementarity: everything is where it is supposed to be).
DeleteShe had been sleeping since five in the morning. The pale, early afternoon sunlight penetrated through the carnation curtains, turning the walls of the room and everything in it a shade of baby pink. Rosy, hot cheeks flushed as smudged Barbie eyelids fluttered open, bubblegum lips half gaping. A bottle of strawberry-colored lemonade stood on the nightstand with a missing cap, cotton candy clothes and flamingo shoes were scattered on the carpet, made cherry blossom by the light and the curtains. Sleepy eyes gazed through the blinds, contemplating a paradise pink sky.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your simile. I found it interesting, that in the beginnning I tended to think about someone who was sick. However the way you turned it didn't sticck with my expectations. Indeed, you didn't really talk about the person you were describing, but instead you used the colour adjectives to describe the narrator's tenderness towards the person. The scene you described is very soothing and peaceful.
DeleteYour description is very well made. Indeed, the use of the different shades of pink really conveys the image of the universe of a little girl, of the "pink paradise". I also find very interesting the fact that you use adjectives and nouns related to sugar (such as the "lemonade", "bubble-gum lips", "cotton candy clothes", ...). It reminds the sweet tooth of a child. Also, all along your description, we are reminded that you are talking about a baby (for instance when the cap of the bottle is missing, when you use the term Barbie). You really managed to convey the idea of innocence and sweetness that a baby has.
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ReplyDeleteHe opened the Scottish red box. Jewels in a mess provoked a series of flashbacks in his head. He thought of her, of her coral red cheeks. She had her hand on the almost cherry red wine-emptied bottle. There was red on the table, in her writing, through the walls, in the chest of the living-room, like passionate marks of misery. Her nails were always painted of an elegant, glittering firebrick red, making her look confident. Everywhere around, from the sidewalk outside the house to the sheets on her bed, by way of the garden with the turtle hiding in the shrubs, he couldn't express how red all was. Such an ardent oppressive red, he realized. How this indescribable red went out of her languid screams.
ReplyDeleteHe took her favorite bracelet out in his hand. He felt her touch on his skin. Her rare, reddish touch.
I really like your description and the repetion of "her" which adds mystery and secret to the identity of the beloved woman. also, red can be seen as the color of love and desire, however you managed to make it more oppressive and dangerous, red as blood maybe? The fact that you mixed the description of the woman with the description of the house she lived in gives me the impression that something happened there, probably something bad thanks to the words "misery","oppressive","screams"... I imagine a dark scene, a lonely man full of regrets and I am split between a feeling of softness and sweet memories or opprressiveness and danger, well done!
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ReplyDeleteAutumn. The life of every single living thing was swept away in a cold wind. As the sun set and colored the sky of these dusky shades of red purple, a dead scarlet leaf was falling. I followed its fall and as it landed at my feet, I noticed the pond of blood that was soaking my brand new vermilion suede shoes. There, before me, lied the corpse of my nemesis. Blood was flowing from his smashed skull, dimmed by the mud, maroon.
ReplyDeleteWas this scene really that quiet or was the blood of my rival stuck in my ears ?
I like that description because we can see the red everywhere, even when you don't describe it (because of the repetition of the word "blood", I think). It is even more interesting that you used a color with its meaning (passion, crime) as you're talking about murder.
Delete"There, before me, lay the corpse of my nemesis."
DeleteLie / lay / lain
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ReplyDeleteShe knew the way by heart. She did not notice anymore the greyish brocken bench that layed, abandoned on the side of the path, on which she used to sit with her friends. She was not paying attention to the innocent pearly-grey birds flying through the ashen trees that bent lazily over her head. She looked like a little mouse under the rain with her framed cloths. Everything was blurry around her because of the dark fog that only let her glimpse the house whose walls had become tarnished over the years. As she was getting closer, the old imposing gates erected before her. She put her hand on the silver handle and pushed the door.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this scene because we can really picture the apparent gloominess of the atmosphere with the fog and the abandoned bench. I really like the silence and the peace emanating from it.
DeleteThe walk on the path seems a metaphor for reminiscing the past which can be austere in an nonnegative way as you drew it with the imposing gates standing before her. I don't feel the grey being aggressive or repulsive but rather smooth and comfortable. All the nuances build up a unblinding calm atmosphere that I find charming.
I think this description is really interesting. Indeed, without knowing who the character, we understand that this walk brings back sad or difficult memories. This is done with the use of the grey colour which has a rather negative connotation to it. Moreover the rainy atmosphere reinforces the gloomy atmosphere. Everything seems to have grown old, to be broken or to be dying. I also like the fact that you have compared the character to a little mouse. It makes the size of the house stand out and emphasises the fact that the character is in a potentially dangerous situation.
DeleteAs I felt the sweet, warm, summer breeze, a smile appeared on my face. I stepped into the dark yellow, burning sand and ran towards the waters edge. Laughing, golden skinned children splashed around in the water in delight, while their parents kept a close eye on them. As the cold tide swept onto my feet, my eyes drifted away towards the horizon until they were stopped by a bright yellow sail that stood out in the middle of the clear blue sea. It was such a reassuring color that reminded me that the dazzling sun was high up in the sky, and this for the rest of the summer.
ReplyDeleteYour description is really pleasant to read! All this yellow conveys such positive feelings, we could almost forget for a second that summer is over! You associate indeed positive images (beach, sun, sail, sea, summer, holidays...) with this bright color : the result is a heaven-like vision, "reassuring" and reminiscing memories most of us have. There's no place for harm in the world you created : smile, laughter, careful parents and clear sea are some hints of this quietness, tranquility, peacefulness and security. I especially liked the fact that there's a little drop in the positiveness, with the blue, cold tide, but that yellow, once more, brings serinity at the very end.
DeleteBeyond the window, the world was gray. Ash-gray clouds overwhelmed the glaucous city and dim skyscrapers were pointing at this glum sky, their head lost in an ivory steam, holding the firmament as old Atlas did millennia ago. In front of all this whitened steel and blackened glass, he couldn't help thinking to his father, with his silvery hair around his onyx eyes and his grim smile without any warmth. But now, as he was standing here, at the very last floor of the newest grayed tower, he felt like these fifty shades of gray were his, and that he had the power either to subdue or to free them. His icy, arsenic mind had already chosen.
ReplyDeleteI was on the beach this summer, drinking my mojito, eating roasted sunflower seeds and staring at the waves of this dark blue water from the warm Black Sea. The beach was so crowded, you could see and hear kids running around, many families speaking different languages which is quite unusual in that country but what really drew my attention was this girl walking away from the beach bar with her blue lagoon cocktail in her right hand, with her long hair blowing in the wind and for some reason she turned around and that look coming straight out of her majestic sky blue eyes hit my retina so hard and got me astonished for a couple of seconds before she disappeared in the crowd.
ReplyDeleteAfter his run, he stopped for a second and finally got up his head. He looked for a second at the landscape around him. The bright green of the endless plain of grass in front of him , made him feel powerful and invinsible. He saw no limits to the world. For the first time, he didn't want to run away anymore. He just wanted to stay here for a minute more and stop time. He remerbered her emerald eyes, how much he loved it, and how he ended up running away from her.. He turned his head and saw the deep hunter green of the fir tree forest right next to him. Suddenly the dark green seemed to surround and take the control of him... He started to panick and, in a hurry, head down, starting to run as fast as possible, once again...
ReplyDeleteI really like your simile and the fact that you first settle your story before starting the description with the colour. This way, we get first the picture of this wide landscape and the feeling of loneliness that surrounds your character. Everything seems huge : the plain, the feeling of power inside him, and as he feels invisible, we have this impression of a place where nothing is disturbed. But on the contrary, the description you give thanks to the colour green seems to be opposed to this picture. You give precise details (the eyes) and the feeling is more oppressive and we feel as uneasy as he does. Finally the fact that he has to run again is well chosen to show that he must escape from this.
DeleteI was waiting for the 8 o'clock bus of that average spring day when I first saw her. She was sitting at the bus stop, holding a purple orchid on her knees. I immediatly thought that she was really pretty, of an unusual beauty though : her short hair, her oversized magenta shirt, her mauve veins that I could see through her pale skin. At some point, she noticed me, so I looked up at the sky, and it was lilac, as the sun came down. My bus arrived, and I went in, after a last gaze at the lilac-sky girl.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your description. The colour appears so powerful here, and the choice of things to describe was particulary interesting. The effet of a mere observation on the narrator is amazing and makes him seem to lose all sense of reality : the purple of her veins, flower and jumper reflected on the whole world around him. I love it!
DeleteI enjoyed reading your description because I love purple and I think that the different shades of that colour can either be innocent and cute or devient and fierce or even sad depending on the way it is used in a description. You managed to create a very interesting atmosphere and I felt as if the lilac-sky girl was a part of the scenery, like a beautiful illusion on a pleasant spring morning.
DeleteMeïssen HINDI
After having spent long years dreaming about it, we finally got the opportunity to do a parachute jump. Le landscape of Cornwall was even better from up there than from the coast. As far as we could see there was the Persian green sea, bordered by the patches of different color: in the bay, the salty grass was olive drag and, right under us the abandoned field was lime green. Over the hill, one could see Mr. and Mrs Key‘s garden and their always full office green fruit trees. I turned around to share my feeling with Tom, moss green, who gave me a never-again look back.
ReplyDeleteHow could I forget his eyes? Their precious sapphire blue twinkle is still printed on my eyelids avery time I close my eyes. In fact it is my last memory of him. We were there, on this naval base, at midnight, oppressed by this azur cloudless sky which felt more like the decor of sad play than reality to me. He was wearing his navy blue uniform, the one that smell of salt and danger every time he came back. But this time it was smelling of farewell and eternity. When it was finally time he entered this huge spruce blue ship which took him away from me for ever as it disappeared further away on this arctic sea of dead happy days.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you used the colour blue to establish a comparison between the man's eyes and the coulour of his uniform. You used the color with a positive (precious sapphire blue) and negative (opressed by the azur sky) conotation wich I found really interesting. It really creates this feeling of coming danger, split, that is waiting for the two lovers. I also really like the association you made between the smells. The "smell of salt and danger" is a really poetic, surprising association and expresses passion and adventure which are an allusion to the love affair;
DeleteIn your passage, blue feels very cold, or even freezing. There is a real sense of sight related to mystery and horizon, just when we can't see the end of a landscape, on the shore for exemple. His navy status straightly evokes to the reader that danger is waiting for him. And I think that blue, in that context, illustrates best what is implied by him getting away and the speaker remaining alone after his departure. He will certainly be putting his life in danger while she will be by herself, worrying for him. We understand therefore that the two of them being separated in bad states cannot feel otherwise than cold. Moreover, the mention of this moment being her last memory of him emphasizes the "freeze" in time and feelings.
DeleteI turned my head slowly. Her burnt brown crinoline was embracing the wind, like a maroon veil in the golden sky. She was here proud and fiery, her slim silhouette moving to the ryhm of a Viennese waltz. The melody hastened and with renewed vigour, she was carried away, revealing her sweet madness. She gracefully spinned, her chestnut hair cascading to her waist like the pouring leaves of a young autumn.
ReplyDeleteYour description is very powerful, it truly emphasizes on the gracefulness of your character. I also find that your style, overall, conveys this grace and beauty; your sentences are somehow very light, maybe due to the repitition of the "H" sound, and there's a rythm to it that makes us think of that Waltz once you've mentioned it. I really like your description, it's very effective!
DeleteI love the fact that you used a rather unusual color, to describe a beautifull, elegant woman. We can clearly see the intention to create a certain atmosphere, which I would describe as dreamy. The contrast between the brown and the gold has the effect of her standing out of the setting. The use of movement in your passage feels very natural, though majestic. Also the use of the walz showing a change of pace is very well done, which makes this an over all surprising and interesting read.
DeleteThe blinding sun reflected on the shimmering waves transformed them into a coral beast, devouring the swimmers. Tourists bobbed around and splashed eacother until they were all a fierce magenta from laughing; To them, everything appeared so bright and powerful that they waded up to the shore and collapsed on the baby pink sand.
ReplyDeleteI found your description very unusual and it made me like it better ! First of all, I really could picture the image of the tourists magenta from laughing but I also think it could refer to sunburns since they are tourists at the beach. Furthermore, the idea of the "baby pink sand" adds a funny and innocente last touch to your description.
DeleteAnd on this autumn afternoon, as we walked down this shredded path, I realized that I was so used to this place I'd forgotten the beauty of it. Now I could see the maroon leaves and the crimson ones, mixed with the auburn ones but all attached to a same tree and its rosewood trunk. And as I realized how man reds could be found in a single landscape, only did I notice that the most beautiful one I had ever seen was her scarlet lips, right in front of me.
ReplyDeleteWho are you? I can't give you credit for your work unless you sign your name.
DeleteThe night was young, but black like the dark shiny fur on a hunting panther. The contrast between her pale face and the all-devouring darkness of the night was astonishing. She was the only white key on the piano, a tiny drop of yin in a see of yang. Though the white in her eyes showed the black past crawling underneath. Haunting. Blacker than the night.
ReplyDeleteI feel the use of the paradigm (?) about the predator is a very interesting choice here. Through the words "hunting" "panther" "devouring" and "crawling" it seems to me there is a personnification of the night, obviously through the panther, but also of the described women's past ; it would be hauting her just like the panther hunts its prey (very good play on words by the way!) and ready to take over her any minute. Also, even though the text is short, there is a powerful and striking opposition between dark and light especially with the simile comparing the girl to "a tiny drop of yin in a see of yang" which emphasizes on the fact that she is pale and standing out in the night but also that she has a black past and very little brightness in her life.
DeleteAs I read your text I have no difficulties imagining the girl in question, well done!
I think you mean "a sea of yang"!
DeleteAs he nervously entered the studio, he started to remember all the moments he had spent in this very room, all the hours he had spent painting The Wave. How the brush felt between his fingers as he slowly began to trace navy sinuous patterns, and how the turquoise dots he had randomly added reminded him of the magnificent electric blue dyed hair this girl had on the train the week before. How he couldn't find the perfect shades to transcribe all the colors he had on his mind and the frustration that he'd felt. The rush of cyan and sapphire that kept flowing through his head, constantly, and kept him awake at night. And finally, how everything suddenly felt right as he added the last touch of azure on the canvas, right before dropping the over-used brush.
ReplyDeleteGood evening Lia,
DeleteI really liked your text, as you made a real correspondence between the artist's state of mind and the painting thanks to the colour blue, so well that once the reader is aware of this they can re-read and find even more links between the artwork and the painter, almost interchanging them sometimes (it is possible as you portrait the painter to us (are you becoming the painter ?)) !
I also appreciated the fact that you translated well the artist's nightmare, as they cannot sleep until their artwork has reached their objective and as the paint must be a true representation of themselves or their own shout, what they want to share etc.
That text was very interesting !
Have a great weekend.
Jean
There were some lost, wandering, grey blue gleams in his normally sapphire eyes. Blue echoes of an almost successfully forgotten past. There was the navy blue of the night's lights and shadows, and in it harbored the Venetian blue of these still vanishing stars that everyone's eyes had lost already. The pale, azure limit of the horizon was also in these eyes, only barrier left between reality and who-knows-what-happens in this mind.
ReplyDeleteBut of all these shades of blue which could be found in his eyes, I preferred the pure, crystalline-blue shooting stars, or sparkles (who knows ?), that appeared sometimes with his rare smiles. I guess when you caught one you had to make a wish. Mine was constantly the same, hopeful one. I always wished for time to stop, so that I would have more time to drown in these beautiful eyes.
As I arrived in the living room, I paused for a moment looking at her sitting on her favourite chair. It was a furry blue chair that, under the light, would shine like a silver coin, as a proud little girl showing off her shimmering dress in the spotlight. Her smoke coloured glasses were slipping further and further along her nose while she read and it reminded me of when my brother and I used to try them on secretly in front of the mirror. She was wearing an ash coloured wool sweater whoms colour had faded away due to time and seemed to have tinged the atmosphere of the room around her. Streaks of salt and pepper hair came down and tickled her forehead, trying to get her attention as little children would do. She pushed them back on the top of her head and drifting from the ink printed words of her book, she caught sight of me and looked up. Her small wolf-grey eyes, full of the calm determination she had been forced to acquire throughout life made me feel as though I was looking onto my clouded future.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the simile comparing the chair to a silver coin, two objects which wouldn't normally be associated with each other, and therefore stands out here. I also think the idea of her sweater having 'tinged the atmosphere of the room around her' interesting, as it creates this idea of time gradually wearing away everything it touches - though here simply a sweater.
DeleteThe early evening sky over her head was flecked with lavender candy-floss clouds, while the hills in the distance were themselves doused in a mauve mist; the many shades of purple were overwhelming, from the small clover-flowers on the ground, struggling to survive at this time of year, to the plump sloe-berries and ripening blackberries dripping off the bushes. The colour even engulfed her – covering her body in a thin amethyst shroud while turning her white dress into the faintest, most indistinguishable shade of purple. This mirrored her glassy quasi indigo eyes, and cold, lifeless, plum-coloured lips.
ReplyDeleteI live in the countryside, where everything is green. Trees are colouring the landscape. Some of them are light green, covered with apples, others pine green. It creates a contrast between the trees and the grass, the moss green soil and the green of your eyes. This green doesn't look like anything else, it has nothing to do with the olive green of the trees in my garden, nor with the lime green of the juice I make every morning. It isn't even close to the shamrock I picked for you in the forest. Some people like to say your eyes look like emerald green or sea green. I cannot say if it is true because I have never been to the sea and I don't need any gem because I have you.
ReplyDeleteShe entered the old bedroom full of old furnitures she used to be familiar with. It had been a long time since she last came to her grandmother's house, she still had a few memories though, the happy ones,they were still burning inside her head, being slowly eaten by the red flames of forgetfulness. The old mirror was still propped up with the wall like an immortal giant. She stared at her reflexion for a minute;she had changed a lot since she last looked at herself in this mirror, the contrast between her pale smooth cheeks and her blood-like crimson lips was almost disturbing.The closed curtains filtered the last autumn rays of light. She stepped forward and opened them, immediately the clear november light invaded the room, running through her brownish dirty red hair as if it were trying to make it shine. She let her gaze travel by the beautiful Scottish landscape she could see through the window, the green that usually colored the region had been replaced with a rusted and golden red. The leaves that had fallen from the trees were swept away by the wind, the cold winter would soon appear, bringing back all the forbidden memories that she would have preferred to have forgotten.
ReplyDeleteMeïssen HINDI