Everything I Know About The Color Burnt Sienna, late afternoon walk in the Rio Grande Valley bosque, photo © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Remember those boxes of Crayola Crayons you used in grade school? Eight in a box, and then each year you graduated to a bigger box — 16, 24, 48. Before you knew it you were up to 64, or maybe — if you were lucky and your parents rich — 120 crayons.
Good-bye brown and orange and blue! Hello Sepia, Burnt Sienna, Periwinkle!
Pick any color from the list of Crayola Crayon Colors and use it as a prompt: Everything I know about the color Sea Green or Prussian Blue… If you want, stick with one-word colors — Plum, or the metallics, Gold, Copper, Silver.
It doesn’t mean you have to write about color. Writing about Burnt Sienna might take you to yesterday’s walk in the woods just as the sun was setting, to how you almost twisted your ankle running in Danskos, to how your daughter asked you what kind of brown-orange plant it was growing at the base of a big cottonwood and the only thing you knew to tell her was “skunk cabbage.”
A prompt is simply the beginning. A line with your crayon in the Big Chief tablet.
So write, 15 minutes, on everything you know about the color ____________. If you’d prefer — instead of writing or in addition to writing — paint, draw, or photograph everything you know about this color. Now go!
redravine.wordpress.com 
yb, this photograph is stunning. Perfectly composed. And the colors…I love how the blacks are pure black like they often can be at dusk. Oh, how I miss the light in New Mexico. It’s like nowhere else on the planet.
I’m looking forward to this Writing Topic. Oh how I coveted my box of Crayolas! We weren’t rich…but I still had the biggest box at the time, was it 64 or 120? I need to check. I guess I had my artist’s priorities straight! The sun is sinking in Minnesota as I write this. No mountains. Just the snowy plains and lakes.
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Thanks, QM. I took a bunch yesterday afternoon…a whole bunch. The light was incredible. We kept following the bosque trail on the south end of the bosque, and every time we found a pathlet down to the river, we’d come up against high reeds. We couldn’t really see the river, just these high blazing orange-brown reeds.
We’d been walking and walking and finally I told the girls we had to turn back, else we’d get caught in the dark and cold. We were passing an opening to the river, and there was a glow coming from that opening. The bosque had turned darker, still some light up high, but a burnt black shadow on one side of the trees. And then that glow. I had to crawl on my stomach to get through the opening, a tangle of brush, much with thorns. My old down jacket got punctured, my hair got caught. I just pulled my way through, and when I got to the other side, boom, that view. It was amazing.
I have an infected thorn stuck in my palm as a result of crawling through the brush, but it was worth it. We got home just at dark.
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p.s., I had the 64-crayon box. How I finagled that, I don’t know. I lusted for the next size up, but frankly, I might have gone crazy over too much choice.
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purple mountain’s majesty! a 15 min. practice:
When I was a girl, growing up in the San Fernando Valley, North Hollywood, to be more precise, there was one mountain in the that ringed our valley, that was secretly mine. No one else knew it was mine, I wasn’t one to flaunt the fact, and I allowed everyone else to take pleasure in its comforting presence, but we were friends. It sheltered me from the wicked Santa Ana winds that blew every year, just as soon as they knew the men were installing the silvery tinsel ropes across Lankershim Boulevard, North Hollywood’s main street, in early December.
Those evil wind gods were so sneaky. We had to peddle our bikes, standing all the way, butting our heads against the winds on the way to school in the morning. Then, at 3 p.m. they would change direction and there we were, again struggling against the wind on the way home! During recess, on our sand-n-gravel playground, the wind spanked the sand against our bare legs, stinging them, except when we were high on the swings, singing, “got no brakes, I’m a P-38,” (the plane my Dad was helping build at Lockheed’s plant in next door Burbank.)
When I married, and moved to the northern plains, so flat and empty, I missed my mountain so much! When we went to the movies, which were usually shot in California, I strained to look at the scenery, searching for any familiar landmarks, especially my mountain, in all her purple majesty.
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yb, Beautiful composition. I love the similarity between the shape of the blue sky and the shape of the water…reflecting blue. I can appreciate this photo even more knowing what you sacrificed to get it. I know you must have some aloe around there to use.
My question, I understand the name change…the important thing is…do they still taste the same? I had a weakness for the royal blue one 😉 H
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This topic touched my heart. And while I will not likely do the practice, I wanted to share something re:crayola crayons. Our grandson, who recently turned 6 years of age ,has a multitude of crayola crayons. Since the ripe age of four he has separated his crayons into “boy” & ”girl” colors! It is like some ritual that truly means something to him. He does the same with the colors of his Matchbox cars. He associates colors to the male & female genders!We even purchased a 48 package of colored pencils. Same thing! Boy & Girl colors! And so the gifts we buy for him must fall into the catagories of “boy” colors! QM, you will be pleased to know that one of our Christmas gifts for him is a “child proof” digital camera (in blue, of course!)
Loved the photo YB! Truly a serene & inviting place to visit! As for crayola colors, my favorites are still the basic colors. Give me the color orange & I will always find happiness! I don’t need all the fancy schmancy new colors they keep adding. Perhaps in the future I will share some of Brants photos! He has quite an eye for photography! D
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oops! I left out the word, “chain,” in my first comment. It should read “a chain of mountains…
YB, Gorgeous photo! Please tell me what a bosque is, and forgive my ignorance, please.
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I pick black. It might take me awhile to finish my piece, though… LOL.
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I don’t know, LB, black is like white, and there are so many shades of white (have you ever tried painting a room white?), that you could actually have a pretty nuanced piece.
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Marylin, thanks for the practice and the comments. How cool that you had your own mountain. The story of your life sounds so Americana, I just have this image of your dad working at Hughes (my uncle left NM to work at Hughes), you growing up in what was then the golden land. And those winds. I love it it. You should write a screenplay about it.
“Bosque” means “forest” (or “woods”) in Spanish. We call our cottonwood forest in the Rio Grande valley the Bosque. Everyone calls it that. No one says “woods” or “forest.” It’s the Bosque. Wikipedia has a pretty good link on Bosque: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosque
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H – when I read this
do they still taste the same? I had a weakness for the royal blue one
I had a taste memory flash.
Yuck, crayon wax. Why did we eat them? I guess they were so tasty looking, those gorgeous colors.
I haven’t eaten any lately, but I bet they’re just as waxy and indigestible as ever before.
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alittleditty – I can tell you’re related to QM (by marriage, though, right?) by this statement: As for crayola colors, my favorites are still the basic colors. Give me the color orange & I will always find happiness!
I bet you like vanilla ice cream and don’t go for the fancy kinds, right? (smile)
I love your story about your grandson! How funny he is. I wonder if he would take to Spanish real easily. You know, everything is male or female in Spanish. I always find it amazing what ends up being male and what ends up being female. It doesn’t always land the way I expect it to.
So, according to your grandson, is Orange a male or female color? Probably female, as it is closer to the pinks than to the blues. But what about yellow? And white and black? Now I want to see how it all gets divided out.
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RED
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YB, I checked out “bosque” in Wikipedia, and learned a lot…thanks! If nothing else will grow, good old cottonwoods will. They grow along the Missouri River in ND & MT. They grow here in WY, along the Shoshone River, (which was called “The StinkingWater” by the Indians, as it smells like sulfur, which is caused by the fact that it leaves Yellowtone park to drain into the Big Horn Basin.)
My Dad moved us from Albuquerque, my birthplace, to CA, when the U.S. entered into WW II., and he had to have work classified as “vital to the defense.”
H…eating crayons gave me a flashback to my 1st Grade classroom. It was “rest time,” the shades were drawn, it was very quiet, until a boy started choking on a crayon! I was amazed that he would want to eat a crayon, but I guess it’s a fairly common occurance.
(don’t know what color it was.)
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YB, oh my goodness! You do have me pegged. And yes, I am related to QM through marriage. (lucky me!) Our grandsons fixation with colors being associated to boy & girl colors is quite funny! I think the color orange is one of the in between colors. As for black, that is a boy color & green is also. The girl colors are pink, purple, & yellow for sure. Red is an iffy color that can go either way. White is for everyone. We have a gumball machine & if he puts his penny in & out comes a blue gumball he will do the “I got a blue gumball dance!”And by the way,I do love vanilla ice cream. However, I enjoy it more with chocolate chips thrown in! D
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What wonderful comments in this thread. I had to take a minute to catch up! All that snow shoveling takes time!
Marylin, I looked up bosque, too. I had looked it up before but just last night, I looked it up again and read it to Liz. It’s funny, I see these things in New Mexico all the time on my travels there but know so little about them. Meeting ybonesy has added great depth and detail to my experience of New Mexico. I remember when we went to the D.H. Lawrence Ranch last year and she was telling us about the drought and its effect on the trees we were passing by. I love learning more about the land, culture, and ecology of New Mexico from her.
alittlediddy, thanks for sharing about the boy/girl colors. Now let me get this straight:
in between
orange
red
boy
black
green
blue
girl
pink
purple
yellow
everyone
white
Can’t wait to see the “I got a blue gumball dance!”
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Oh, alittleditty, I forgot to respond to the Christmas gift – the“child proof” digital camera (in blue, of course!). I’m ecstatic. Sounds like he’s quite the photographer. Looking forward to seeing his photographs. It’s never too early! I started out with a Brownie, a Polaroid, then a Kodak Instamatic!
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Wow.. that photo has everything, Ybonesy… colour, composition, movement, leading lines. Well done. And what a great idea for a writing prompt. I need to make time to do this one.
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I haven’t read the comments yet, just wanted to say, this prompt is too fun (and has too much potential) not to try…
And I love the photograph. Awesome photo… Kinda goes in my head with teaspoon’s essay about New Mexico
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Peach. this is renamed from the previous flesh in 1962, the year i was born. how interesting. Growing up, my family avoided the chestnuts, the browns, the blacks, and the yellows. Our house was surrounded by peach. i was taught as a child to lock the car doors as we drove downtown. in 1969 we moved into a town and in the first 3 days found the national guard rolling a tank down our street. the entire city was on curfew due to rioting and my dad slept with his axe under his pillow he was so frightened. Only recently did justice get served when the murder of Lilli Belle Allen was finally resolved. i didn’t understand the connection between all of this and the color Peach until much later.
As a child, i thought it was an ugly color. i never used it. i colored people blue and green and purple. i colored things blue and green and purple. i am glad the crayon was renamed the year i was born. i am glad the crayon can re-invent itself.
when i went to college, i found more crayons in the box. i found brown, and chestnut, and black, and yellow. only then did i become aware that sometimes the blue crayon loved the other blue crayon. and that three black crayons were not anymore scary than three peach crayons.
I remember opening my first box of 64, and how much more exciting that was than opening a box of 8.
peach.
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Peach, oh my gosh!, what a memory flash your comment/practice created for me. Yes, peach, and why was it that I, too, always picked peach for the color of flesh? I’m not the color of a peach!
Thank you so much, reccos62, for leaving this comment. I was born one year earlier than you, and it really resonated with me. I’m glad the crayon can reinvent itself, too, and I’m glad that I found out that I’m not peach. (Oh, and I still color people blue, green, purple, red. Until now I never thought it might have something to do with crayons and the color peach.)
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Hey, pmousse and amuirin, thanks for the comments. I will watch for your pieces.
I did a writing practice yesterday with a friend on this prompt. We wrote on Everything I know about the color red…” and we wrote for 16 mins (because that’s what my phone alarm auto-landed on). We both went deep right away. It was amazing how much we could drop into writing with something as basic as a color.
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reccos62, that’s quite a moving essay on the color Peach. Your Dad sleeping with an ax under his bed. The fear. I have to admit, even though I spent my teenage years and early 20’s in Pennsylvania, I had to familiarize myself with the Lilli Belle Allen story. I don’t remember hearing about it when I was growing up, but I bet Mom does.
For those who want to read more, here are a few links to the details of the Lillie Belle Allen story. They are worth the read:
Sister Tells About Race Riot Murder in the Omaha News (KETV 7, Omaha, Oct 1, 2002) (LINK)
Racial Killing Revisited on the PBS online News Hour with Ray Suarez, July 23, 2001 (you can listen to this one if you like) (LINK)
There are also lots of brief stories in the New York Times (LINK). It looks like the last was when the settlement came out, December 7, 2005: York, Pa, officials announce that children and sisters of Lillie Belle Allen, black woman killed 36 years ago in York race riots, will share $2 million settlement from lawsuit against city and five former police officers; photo.
Thanks reccos62. I had no idea all that was part of your childhood. BTW, I didn’t miss that sometimes the blue crayon loves the other blue crayon. And the pink crayon sometimes loves the pink crayon, too. 8)
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reccos62… really great read by a really gifted writer…
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