The colour Green
My first word was hello and my second, green. It leapfrogged into my vocabulary early, little me sitting in my highchair as Mum painted the kitchen so boldly, the word passing between us like a ball.
It was a bright green, moored by pale wood and large windows. A botanical harmony that I’ve chased ever since, painting stairs and cupboards and bedrooms. Looking back I can now see where my love (or let’s admit it, greediness) for colour began.
Green is a colour that sweeps through nature from the delicate shades of pea, grass and moss to the emerald depths of the jungle and the dark heart of a forest. It is the one family where the majority of its hues are named for the natural world, and the colour we use when we want to bring the outside in.
With tones warmer than blue and more sophisticated than yellow, I use it as a ready answer. For example, what colour dress should I wear? Green. What colour shoes should I buy? Green. What colour should this velvet sofa be? Green. It is a principle to dress by, create by, live life by.
COLOUR FACTS: GREEN
Green eyes are an optical illusion due to the pigmentation of the iris and its interaction with the way blue light scatters across it.
Green diamonds are very rare. Exposure to radiation as they develop causes the hue. The largest known green diamond, the Aurora Green, sold for $16.8 million (US) in 2016.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was dressed in dark green, which represented prosperity and the merchant class of the period.
According to a NASA study in 1989, houseplants are so effective at removing pollutants from the air, that some scientists say they are better than air purifiers.