Shades of Blue

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. This month, the Weekly Prompts Colour Challenge is “blue”. I have written several posts addressing the color blue. It is one of my favorite colors, probably my favorite after purple. Oh wait, now that I think of all the beautiful shades of blue, I actually believe as a general color category, blue is even better than purple. Sorry, lilac.

There are so many wonderful shades of blue. I once took a quiz on Dictionary.com to determine how much I knew about the different words for various blues. The only one I got wrong the first time I took the quiz, was the meaning of “cerulean”. I was unsure when I retook it today too, but remembered that my first instinct had been incorrect back then so selected the next thing that came to mind. And this time, I scored 8 out of 8 correct answers. That doesn’t mean that I don’t tthink cerulean should be purplish.

Since the quiz did not explain every shade of blue clearly, and there are many more that weren’t mentioned in it, I just looked a few up. Since I do have some concept of color despite being totally blind now, I can imagine what colors would look like. No-one can be sure whether I’m correct, but that applies to sighted people’s internal perception of color as well.

Blue is the color I have the most shades of in polymer clay and I don’t even have all of them. I have Fimo blue (true blue, so blue as blue should be, apparently), brilliant blue, pacific blue, aqua, blue ice quartz, blue agate and peppermint, which contrary to common sense is blue not green. I also have Premo cobalt blue and ultramarine blue, as well as Cernit in several shades of blue that I can’t remember. In this sense, it’s interesting to note that I hardly create anything primarily blue out of polymer clay. I think I need to change that.

#IWSG: Finding My Voice

Posted on by Astrid

Today, it is once again time to share our thoughts with the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG). The optional question assigned for this month is to write about from whose perspective you like to write best. Since I rarely write fiction nowadays, my answer is simple: my own.

I didn’t do much blogging in the past month. Part of the reason is the need to remain silent about some recent occurrences in my life. This means some diary-style writing is out of the question right now. Unless, that is, I do it offline.

Which brings me to the fact that I rediscovered Dyrii, an app on my iPhone and now on my Mac too, which you can use for keeping a journal. It still needs a little getting used to on my part, but overall, I like it. It helps me find my voice again, even if it isn’t in public.

I seem to have been able to write some more again in the past week. It feels good. I always feel good when I write.

I am also seriously thinking of starting up my fiction writing again, even though I am told that it generally lacks imaginativeness. I will see if tomorrow, which is my day off from day activities, I can write some fictional piece again.

In other news, I got myself the Dictionary.com app on my iPhone. I am loving looking up new words and idioms. As you might know, English is my second language and half the words that I come across in word-of-the-day challenges, I do not know the meaning of. I’m told this isn’t so unusual and that I’d benefit more from learning idioms rather than vocabulary. I don’t care. It’s cool to learn either way.