Color Mixing Recipes!

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts this week asks us to write about something we collect or used to collect. Another asks us to write about something we’ve been working on this week. Yet another asks us to make one superficial wish. I am going to combine all of these and talk about color mixing recipes for polymer clay.

As regular readers of my blog will know, I am totally blind, but I did have a bit of useable vision growing up. As a result, I do still have a concept of color due to my memory of sight and also due to my synesthesia (in my case, ability to see Braille letters in color when I touch them).

As regular readers also know, my main creative hobby recently, besides blogging, is polymer clay. I love the fact that polymer clay comes in so many varieties of colors and that you can also color it with alcohol inks (which I’ve never used so far), soft pastels, acrylic paint, etc.

However, a few months ago, I discovered color mixing recipes. The vendor I impulsively bought a small collection of five recipes from, builds its recipes on four basic colors of Fimo soft: white, sunflower yellow, Indian red and brilliant blue. I immediately bought all four colors, but didn’t yet have a precision kitchen scale to be able to weigh out 0.25g, for example.

This past Sunday, I bought such a scale and also bought another collection, this time of 60 color recipes. Even though I can’t yet say I actually collect polymer clay color recipes, I would really like to.

That brings me to my superficial wish: an endless supply of free Fimo color recipes. There is an app that provides color recipes based on the colors in photos, but it’s available only on Android. Besides, one of my staff tried it yesterday and it constantly crashed. It also uses Fimo professional. Now I don’t mind that, since the advantage of Fimo professional is it actually comes in the true primary colors, such as true yellow, true magenta, etc. I would really love to be able to try to mix those colors too, as I’ve heard mixing actual true primaries creates more vivid colors than mixing fake primaries such as sunflower yellow and Indian red.

By the way, here is a blob of polymer clay in the first color I created using my new collection of color mixing recipes and my precision scale: moss green.

Of coursse, since I didn’t create anything with this color yet, it looks a bit weird, but I’ll be using it in a fall-inspired craft project I have in mind.

Since then, I’ve created two more colors, both for the fall-inspired project too: camel and burnt sienna. I have also been oohing and aahing at a ton of color recipes I would like to buy someday still. But they’re better if they don’t cost me money. So, if Mama Kat’s friendly genie would please pop by me and grant me that endless supply of free Fimo color mixing recipes, I could create all the colors I want.

Mama’s Losin’ It

The COVID Chronicles, #1: The Two Red Lines on the Reddest Day

Posted on by Astrid

Yesterday was February 22, 2022. In the European way of writing the date, it was a palindrome: 22-02-2022. Not only that, but we won’t get any more twos (or the same numbers at all, for that matter) in a date in our lifetime. The number two is red in my synesthetic perception. How ironic that, on this day, I got the two red lines on my COVID test. Oh well, I got the PCR test, not the self-administered lateral flow test, so no red lines at all, but you get the idea. Yes, you read that right: I’m positive for COVID now.

I had the PCR test at around 11AM. Before then, I was feeling mostly fine. Well, I wasn’t feeling 100%, but I hadn’t since Thursday and my two lateral flow tests had been negative. I trusted those, sort of. Then, I started having teary eyes, but both the staff and I attributed that to the test. I still had a headache, but no more severe than I’d had since Thursday.

By mid-afternoon, I was having trouble not sniffing a lot, but was still in denial. After all, the thought of my staff having to wear PPE, my inability to be in close physical contact and my need for five more days in self-isolation triggered me.

By 4PM, my assigned home staff came on. She had had COVID a week ago and we started joking that she wanted me in the positive camp. By this time, I was truly experiencing significant sniffiness, so if it wasn’t COVID, it certainly was a bad case of the common cold. I also had a bad headache and what I jokingly called COVID brain, ie. an inability to find words (I just had trouble finding the word “find”), etc. I think it’s an actual thing though.

The evening staff came by my room at 9:15PM, but I was too busy to notice she was wearing PPE. I finished what I was doing and turned to face her. She told me calmly that, sadly, I have COVID.

I didn’t sleep much at all last night despite taking paracetamol before bedtime. In fact, I awoke at 3:15AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. Despite this, I’m not feeling very fatigued as of yet. As such, I consider myself really lucky that I seem to be having a mild case of the virus.

The Color Of Words #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

SoCS Badge 2019-2020

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS) is “color”. I already shared about my perception of color several months ago. Like I shared then, I no longer have the ability to see colors in the physical world due to being totally blind. I used to as a child though and still retain the ability to see colors in my mind’s eye through synesthesia.

I mentioned that color words don’t always correspond to their own color. For example, the word “green” is mostly red. The word “color” itself is mostly yellow. Both o’s are yellow and so is the c. Interestingly, so is the u in the British spelling of the word.

I love some words more depending on their color combinations in their synesthetic presentations in my mind. For example, really I like the British spelling of “colour” more than the American one. The slightly darker shade of yellow for the u adds an interesting shade to the word that makes it somehow more appealing. Same for the word “synaesthesia” in its British spelling. I don’t honestly think there are many words whose American spelling appeals more synesthetically to me than its British spelling. Then again, I am used to mostly using American English on my blog, so that’s what I’ll do.

Color Vision

Posted on by Astrid

As regular readers of my blog will know, I am blind. I wasn’t always totally blind though. As a child, up to around age twelve, I could see most colors. I could still see some very bright colors until I was eighteen.

When I asked the ophthalmologist at the university medical center to put me on the waiting list for cataract surgery in 2013, some color vision was all I hoped for. The doctor said that the best possible outcome was that I could have hand motion vision, ie. see someone’s hand move from one meter away. I didn’t really care about seeing anything one meter in front of me. If I’d have to hold a colored paper five centimeters in front of me to see its color, that was fine by me. I just wanted to be able to distinguish colors again. Unfortunately, though the surgery was at least a partial technical success, I never regained color perception.

When asked at the rehabilitation program for the blind what we’d be happiest about to regain if we ever regained our vision, most of my fellow clients mentioned some variation of independence. I, though, said that I’d be able to enjoy the colors of nature again. Unfortunately, though technology has come a long way, it will likely never be able to recreate an experience remotely similar to color vision.

I can still, fortunately, see some colors, but it’s in my mind’s eye. You see, I have projected grapheme-color synesthesia. When I touch the characters on my Braille display, they evoke a visual sensation of a color. Each letter corresponds to its own color, though some of the colors are very similar. That probably reflects the fact that I was never able to see the full variety of shades of colors that sighted people can. For example, the V and J are both a light shade of green. I can tell them apart if I see them both, in that the J is a slightly lighter, mintier shade, but it’s hard to describe.

Words also have an overarching color. In case you’re wondering, the colors of color words don’t always align with their meaning. For example, the word “Green” is more red (after the letter G) than green, even though both E’s are green.

I love my synesthetic color perception. It makes up for a loss of appreciation that no amount of technology can compensate for.

This post was inspired by CalmKate’s Friday Fun Challenge with the theme of “Colors”. I’m not really sure whether this rambling piece fits the idea of the challenge, but oh well.

Jade

Posted on by Astrid

We don’t have an alter named Jade. We do have one named Jane, one named Janita and one named Jace (short for Jaclyn). But we have no Jade. Then again, we love jade.

Jade is a beautiful green gemstone. At least, that’s the color we know. There are also creamy white and blue jades. We had at least one, a green jade, in our gemstone collection, I believe.

It is supposed to be a protective stone, in terms of crystal healing. I’m not sure I believe in crystal healing, but to some extent, I guess I do. Jade is supposed to promote self-sufficiency. In that sense, I guess our alter named Jane would love it as her stone.

When I look at the supposed benefits of jade, I see it also promotes balance, harmony and moderation. To me, this signifies that it could be an especially useful stone for us.

It isn’t specifically suited to our Zodiac sign. That is, it is suited to Libra, which we are supposed to be if you take our due date as our birth date. Which I have no idea whether any astrologers even do. I guess not. Our regular Zodiac sign is Cancer.

Jade is connected to the heart chakra. The heart chakra’s color is green. At least, when I did a guided color meditation using the chakras, I was told to envision the heart chakra as green. I wonder whether there’s any connection between the main colors of gemstones and what chakras they’re most related to.

Synesthetically, the word “jade” is also green. Three out of the four letters are green and the overarching color of the word is an emerald green. I truly think it’s amazing!

Linking up with #JusJoJan, for which the prompt today is “jade”. I’m not sure I’m allowed to link up, since I didn’t previously participate this year, but oh well.

Blue to the Blind #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS) is “blue”. The idea is to write about the firsst blue object you see when sitting down to write your post. Well, I am blind, so I don’t see anything blue as I sit here to write. I could be writing about things I know to be blue. The sky is blue. The ocean is blue. Or at least, they’re both seen as blue due to the sun’s reflection on them, or something.

I could be writing about my sensory cat, the soft toy I got for my 31st birthday from my sister. I think the cat is blue. It is filled with lavender, which I know is kind of blue too.

How would I describe blue to a person who’s never seen it? I can, at least, having had color perception as a child, still imagine blue in my mind’s eye. Someone born totally blind can’t. I once wrote a post describing the color green to blind people on my old blog. This was a journaling prompt, just so you know that no actual blind person asked me to describe the color green. Which, I should say, I really can’t.

I mean, synesthesia may be able to help. Blue is a “cool” color. It is the color of the number three in my synesthetic perception. Then again, even with synesthesia, everyone’s perception is different, so that wouldn’t make sense.

Interestingly, there are no blue letters in the word “blue” and the overarching color in the word is orange for the letter B.

I wonder now, does my synesthesia always make words look like the color associated with their first letter. I’m not sure, but the word “green”, even though the two E’s are green, isn’t really green overall. It’s more red with a touch of green. The G is red.

Mondays are green too, even though the word “Monday” has no green letters in it. Fridays are blue and yet again, there’s no blue letters in the word. Isn’t that fascinating?