Blue bedrooms... and purple sometimes...

SUMMARY: History of my bedroom colors

Source: Comment on a friend's FB page about repainting their deep red bedroom (a color someone else picked) to light blue.

I said: 

My bedroom in my parents' house I painted a fairly saturated somewhat lighter blue. I loved it. In the intervening decades, I painted one bedroom white, a later one I actually wallpapered (loved it!), a later one I left the wallpaper that was already there and it wouldn't have been my choice but mostly peaceful and matched my other things. This is the first time i've painted my bedroom blue again--this time just the wall behind the headboard is a rich almost navy blue and I feel peaceful just walking in and seeing it! I think your light blue sounds like it will be perfect.

But: I know you want details and photos! (Photos might take longer)

My bedrooms:

• Basement room in my parents' house. Until then, I had almost always shared one of the upstairs bedrooms with one or more of my sisters. My recollection is that we painted it pale blue. Mom made me a bedspread of some sort of blue and purple fabric. This lasted only a few months--I was in 6th grade--and then we moved away.  No pictures exist that I can recall.

• Bedroom in my parents' new house. Five bedrooms, seven people. The three oldest of us kids got our own rooms and dad had the builders paint each room in our favorite colors. Mine was a somewhat sickly pale greenish blue. When I could, I and my friends painted it that fairly saturated somewhat lighter blue, and I painted my furniture blue and purple! [photos exist]

  

  Oh, I forgot about the very inexpensive blue shag carpet! (Not wall to wall, just a large rug.)
  The color of the drawers behind me was the color of the walls.  PS I made the big cushion.

  
  

• Dorms at college. Some students did paint their rooms; I wasn't so ambitious, although I did paint a mural on the wall outside the room! [pictures exist]
  
  

  

  I copied this from about a 2-square-inch image cut from a magazine ad somewhere.
  
  

  
  

  

  First dorm. My side has the blue (?) cover--I don't even remember it!
  But I still have most of the wall art

  
  

  

  Second dorm, my side.

  
  

  

  Third dorm. Same blue cover, same blue cushion,
   lots of the same wall art mostly not visible in this crappy scanned photo.

• Bedrooms in two successive rented apartments covering about a year and a half. I didn't even put up pictures nor  nuthin'. [might be a photo of 2nd one but not sure]

• My own private townhouse! Didn't paint the room (it was white) but I bought a gorgeous matching set of bedspread and drapes: Fuzzy and huge stripes of various shades  of blue. Something I had been coveting from the Sears catalogs, which were things that I pored over for years for home supplies and decor. [not sure whether photos exist]

• First shared  house with husband: I wallpapered it! All by myself! I did a great job and I loved it, although I don't exactly recall the pattern. Probably small delicate blue & white? [not sure whether photos exist]

• Second shared house: It was white. It stayed that way. It was airy and open and had trees outside the second story windows and it just seemed right. [photos exist]

• My own private next house: Came with wallpaper. Not what I would have chosen, but three of the walls matched my general decor (flowers of various colors) and so I left it. [photos exist]

  

  Notice 2 types of wallpaper. The one on the left covered 3 walls; the one on the right was only that wall. I had a lot of flower decor and sheets and so it worked--kinda--

  
  

• My now current house: The aforementioned navy blue! [photos exist]

And there you have it!

That White and Gold Dress (what? Blue and Black? No Way! (Visual or optical illusions)

SUMMARY: Brains are fascinating things. So are colors.

Things in shade or shadows take on a blue cast. In sunlight, they might appear blue or white or green or who knows, but also may take on a yellow cast.

If you know that an item is in shade or shadow, your experience and your brain know how to subtract the blue subconsciously--If you have the proper context.

Photographers and artists know this. 

Photo: Note blue shadows on backlit trees and the path

From PeakPx free wallpapers?

Painting: Shadows are blue or bluish
from Mark Mehaffey on Artists' Network
(I couldn't figure out how to just include this directly from the page, it's set up oddly)

The famous dress --
white with gold or
 blue with black? (Via Wikipedia) 

As a photographer, I'm very aware of the color effect of shade. For example, if someone wears a white and gold dress and I can see the whole person and the whole environment around them (e.g., it's sunny in the background but they are standing under the shade of a tree), your brain can subtract the blue tone from the shaded area and correctly see the colors--and ditto if you can also see the wearer's face and see that it is vastly overexposed like the background. 

But if you zoom in so that you see only a portion of the dress in the shade and everything behind it lit up, your brains (and cameras!) no longer understand whether it is a white and gold dress in the shade or a black and blue dress in the sun or very overexposed or WHAT.

I think that photographers and painters tend to see it as if it is in shade, which means it's white and gold modified by the blueness of shade. We know that it's blueish because of the shade, so we automatically subtract the shade to make it what it "really" is: white and gold. My mind has great difficulty accepting that it is anything other that that. Even after seeing photos of the actual black and blue dress. 

It's a fascinating example of how your experiences and interests might affect your perception, versus mine.

This professor of psychology and neurology notes that about 2/3 of viewers see it as white and gold (unless I got that backwards).

Here's a photo of a Disneyworld duck. (Because I paid so much to get to Florida and get into the park, I just want to stand there taking photos of ducks?!?) It was a sunny day, as you can clearly see.

But wait--that's not how the image actually came out of the camera. I asked Photoshop to adjust the coloring for a sunny day, because it was a sunny day but it came out of the camera quite bluish because it was actually in the shade on a sunny day. Which version is better? I like the former because it better shows what my brain saw, not the colors that the mindless camera chose to apply.

How do you see the dress?

Meanwhile, speaking of visual illusions and ducks: Can you unsee this once I tell you that ducks all wear a dog mask on their face?

Colors of Dining Out

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

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Closing on the end of an era--?

SUMMARY: They're Just Big Chunks of Plastic, Right?

Previous posts on this topic:

• April 10, 2012: Mat Matters
• May 1, 2006: No More Rain!

As I related in Mat Matters, my dog mats... crating mats... canopy mats...   oh, right, agility mats... came to me through happenstance between 1997 and 2012.  Their two common features were:  purple. And agility.  I'd have preferred teal or blue with the purple, but, OK, purple.

After that post, my first two mats went into the trash, just too beat up.  The other two were good--one (purple and black) brand new then; the purple and white only a couple of years older, but its edge already fraying, which I never did get around to taping up.

Since (sigh, sob, sad, shoulders droop) 2014 they have been sitting on the same shelf in the garage where I kept them for the preceding 13 years. Sitting. Just sitting there. Waiting. Wanting to be out on a field somewhere, or on the dirt of an arena, or really anywhere.  Wanting matching dog crates resting on them, protecting them, dogs comfy inside them. Matching chairs. Matching leashes. Matching gear bags and toys.

Shocks me every time I realize how long it has been since I tried competing in agility.  "Just a temporary setback," I told myself.

Today, needed to tidy some garage shelves.

Had already gone thru boxes of paper/plastic plates, cups, and plasticware.
Notice a theme in colors even here?
I used to have a lot of parties and barbecues...

Dog gear that used to fit on a shelf and a half had gradually flowed from the initial shelf up and down and across. Same gear that used to fit! So, get to it. First thing, I grabbed the mats to pull them down-- and was showered with purple! (shock, startle, jump back) The purple and white literally disintegrating in my hands!

Holy crappola--is this actually a thing that happens?!

The mat. The frayed side/binding at the bottom from way back, but the crumbling purple is new...

The black and purple is fine. So, really, I guess the P&W was of cruddy quality from the beginning.  Spent 20 minutes taking the mat outside for a final photo, putting it into the trash, and then cleaning up piles and miles of scattered crumbling mini-to-micro plastic bits, on the shelves near the mats, on the floor under the mats, in a trail across the garage, in piles on the sidewalk where I spread it for photos, sweeping and vacuuming Purple.

I keep feeling the edge of my agility era creeping closer. I'm not yet ready to admit that I'm done. I might not be done--since I had been taking Zorro to class before my knee surgery followed by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, with many cases in my county, not going to be one of the first to open much up quickly, either.  Don't know where it will all go. But--another mat gone. Another connection.

But, so--just mats. But with nearly 300 weekends of competition--which means likely 1000 days of competitions--plus seminars, and classes, and fun activities--  It's all part and parcel of Being An Agility Person.  So strange.

What kind of face is that, anyway?

SUMMARY: Makeup

Backfill: Typed this May 20, 2019...:oops, why didn't I post it?  --- MARCH 25: Added first-grade class photo.

True story about me: When I was about 35, I went to a stylist who suggested that I try false eyelashes or at least mascara. I said no. But she talked me into finding a very pale mascara (light brown, I guess), which was hard to find, and it was OK, i suppose. Never used it much. But that's me--because my lashes are so short and straight, they needed a tiny bit of curling to show up even then. All too much of a pain for such tiny lashes. My newest cousin infant is lucky to have naturally long, curled-up eyelashes.

Me, at eighteen. What I think is interesting about this is that my eyes have always been listed as blue. When I got my first license, I asked the clerk something about the color, and she agreed blue. They sure don't look blue here!

Class photo, 1st grade -- they do look a bit blueish; I'll have to go find any photos at all from my youngest youth to see how blue they really looked.

My eyes today. About the color they've always been, I think.  Sort of bluish greenish. The Colors person I went to (different from Stylist) suggests bright teal or BLUE as my most flattering colors ("Dramatic", as in, if I walk into a room and I want people to notice ME and I'd look great in them--based some on eye color but also on skin tone). But see what she  put for Eye Tones? Not blue!

Me at 50. Depends on the light, too, I suppose.

Me at 47.

Added Oct 20, 2019:

Me, now. (Cell phone selfie, hence not so sharp, but colors are ok.) Not really blue...?

Any Questions About My Preferences?

SUMMARY: Wordless Wednesday

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Teal

SUMMARY: (Mostly) Wordless Wednesday: Colors posts--never have done teal!

I've done many agility-related color posts, but even though I love teal, somehow I've missed that one. So--voila! Mostly agility--but not all! Google search on "teal color" > > > > >

Left to right, top to bottom: Parrot in Monterey / first agility mat all worn out / agility competitor Rob / cooler handle / railing at Santa Cruz boardwalk / towel at agility / broad jump / award ribbon / speaker box handle / Tika in her crate / tunnel barrel / discussing agility course map / numbered course cones / poop-bag dispenser / my clothing and fitbit / triple jump half / mom’s empty mug collection cabinet / awesome car in parking lot / my favorite tie-dyed team shirt / faithful suitcase duffel for overnight agility trips / wall at WAG / agility peeps in teal / Gail with Gwyneth and Debbie with Porsche teamed for pairs and both earned their championships on that run (a rare occurrence) / tie dye is popular at agility / Boost always fetched her leashie at the end of a run / Tika loved being told to BREAK! / green winged teal / cinnamon teals/span>



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