and then…

knit imitates life.
Karen Alfke sent me this after seeing the previous graying post. It is a design she and I are working on together.
Obviously this has been brewing for awhile.

today’s color obsession

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I am obsessed with the subtle color changes in this picture I took at the coast recently.  Make sure you click on it to make it bigger so you can see all of the color glory. I especially love how it looks like the sand cannot decide whether to be brown or eggplantish or here and there a little of both.  Everything is kissed by that golden hue of sunset, made more exquisite by the earlier downpour.  I have notes on at least 4 different shaded solids from this photo and also some testing for mirroring some the the grays with the darker shades.
Since I do live here in Oregon and it does stay gray quite a bit of the year. I decided a few months ago that maybe a gray color study would be appropriate and help me embrace this part of where I live.  I have learned so much and gained a great appreciation and love for the subtle variances that the Pacific Northwest does to gray with cloud cover. It is one of those fine line places that are so intriguing. Because what makes it so magical here is also what makes it seem intolerable.
Overcast, slightly cloudy, misty, there are so many ways to describe the fact that, “ Oh holy mother, it is going be be cloudy and yucky again today”. 
We all have our moments of I am so out of here and off to someplace tropical and warm and of my goodness what is that shining bright ball of light in the sky.  A couple of years ago the Oregonian had a weather writer that I believe got through the winter by finding the most creative ways to describe the days weather.  It worked too, I looked forward to those every single day. He was really funny and never disappointing.  I miss him, bet he lives in Florida now.
So the gray that colors most of the days here softens, reflects, absorbs, enriches depending on the amount of light that is filtered...the depth of shade. 
Today’s Oregon sky is the palest pearly gray with a threatening promise of water falling from it at some point in time (maybe). The evergreens and what little green grass there is are cast in blue. Browns are darker and the lighter shades are a bit luminescent.  Not a bad place to be.