The Describer's Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations by David Grambs Page B

pink bougainvillea; at the houses of Queen’s Row, their ancient arching plaster facades painted in vivid colors sun-bleached to pastels; at the old gray stone church, and the white-washed Georgian brick pile of the Sir Francis Drake Inn.
    HERMAN WOUK, Don’t Stop the Carnival
     
     
New elements (especially prevalent in the highlands) include the first attempts at polychrome painting (black, white, red, and yellow paints applied after firing), the first bichrome slipping (for instance, red-on-cream and red-on-orange), and the beginnings of the Usulutan tradition of resist decoration. Red, black, orange, and streaky brown slipped wares are typical; the streaky-brown pieces were often highly polished.
    SYLVANUS MORLEY, The Ancient Maya
    Useful Color Modifiers
     

     
     
    COLORS
     
     
    snow white
snowy, niveous
    white as chalk
chalk white, cretaceous, chalky
    white as milk
milky white
    white as a lily
lily white
    bleached-out white
blanched, etiolated
     
     
But above all it is the fantastic colouring of the beaches that as an image overpowers the minutiae. Above the tide-line the grey rocks are splashed gorse-yellow with close-growing lichen, and with others of blue-green and salmon pink. Beneath them are the vivid orange-browns and siennas of wrack-weeds, the violet of mussel-beds, dead-white sand, and water through which one sees down to the bottom, as through pale green bottle-glass, to where starfish and big spiny urchins of pink and purple rest upon the broad leaves of the sea-tangle.
    GAVIN MAXWELL, Ring of Bright Water
     
     
The picture was her final treasure waiting to be packed for the journey. In whatever room she had called her own since childhood, there it had also lived and looked at her, not quite familiar, not quite smiling, but in its prim colonial hues delicate as some pressed flower. Its pale oval, of color blue and rose and flaxen, in a battered, pretty gold frame, uncon querably pervaded any surroundings with a something like last year’s lavender.
    OWEN WISTER, The Virginian
     
     
    From the basic blackness of the flesh of the tribe there broke or erupted a wave of red color, and the people all arose on the white stone of the grandstands and waved red objects, waved or flaunted. Crimson was the holy-day color of the Wariri. The amazons saluted with purple banners, the king’s colors. His purple umbrella was raised, and its taut head swayed. SAUL BELLOW, Henderson the Rain King
    not quite pure white or slightly grayish
off-white (e.g., oyster, cream, eggshell)
    thinly or translucently white
bone white
    bluish white
alabaster
    yellowish white
eggshell, cream, ivory, bone
    grayish white
oyster, platinum, tattletale gray
    silvery white
argent
    bluish white
pearl
     
    bright or vivid red
crimson, scarlet, vermilion, vermeil, cardinal, carmine,
geranium, cinnabar, apple red, tomato, lobster red,
fire-engine red, fiery
    dark red
wine, wine red, maroon, ruby, cranberry, garnet, currant
    moderate red
cherry, cerise, blood red
    brownish red
burgundy
    orangish red
poppy
    grayish or bluish red
strawberry
    purplish red
raspberry, magenta, grape, raisin, claret
    brick red
lateritious
    rust red
rufous, ferruginous
     
     
    Thundery day along Greenback. All the willows standing still with their leaves pricked. Dusty green. Pale lilac shadows. Tarred road reflecting the sky. Blue to make you jump. A great cloud over on the Surrey shore. Yellow as soap and solid as a cushion. Shaped like a tower about a mile high and half a mile thick, with a little Scotch pepper pot in front. Dresden blue behind full of sunlight floating like gold dust. River roughed up with little waves like the flat side of a cheese grater. Dark copper under the cloud, dark lead under the blue. I could use that cloud in the Fall, I thought. It’s a solid square. To give weight in the top left-hand corner, opposite the Tower. Salmon on pink. It’s an idea worth trying.
    JOYCE CARY, The Horse’s Mouth
     
     
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