Color Me Pretty!

If you were anything like me in high school, I spent hours with friends determining our "season"- was I a summer or a fall? (answer: fall).  And, after the dark days of December and January, at Pickett's Press we decided it was time to invent some new colors!

NATURE ALWAYS WEARS THE COLORS OF THE SPIRIT- EMERSON

Inspired by Emerson's quote, we have been busy creating custom mixed colors which we've named after our favorite flowers, stones, clays and trees.  Here is a peek into what inspires us and what goes into mixing all these gorgeous new colors for our letterpress and engraving. 

Periwinkle Blue – We mixed this color to be in between blue and violet.  Derived from periwinkle or myrtle herb, which bears lavender-blue color flowers.  (Interesting fact: It was first used as a color name in English in 1895.)

Dubonnet Red - This is a deep purply red which we named after a sweet wine of the same name used as an aperitif.  It is known for a spicy aroma and rich ruby color.

Oyster Gray - We mixed this color to be a cool soft gray taken from the mix of hues of the natural oyster shell.

Charcoal Gray - A deep blue black gray, our darkest color which is not black.  Interesting fact – you can use a piece of charcoal, put in an open bowl or perforated plastic bags in your fridge or drawers to banish odors.

Sky Gray -  We worked hard to get this shade just right.  It’s a light blue-gray, provoking the color of the sky before sunrise on a cloudy day, or of a misty afternoon sky in London.

Cranberry Red - We mixed this to mimic the deepest red black shade of ripe cranberries.  The deep red conveys the crispness of a ripe cranberry, with its sharp acidic taste.

Turquoise - We named our color after the semiprecious stone, which has been used as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years.  (Interesting fact: It is found only in dry and barren regions of Earth and we think it is one of the most beautiful colors in the world). To us, the color feels like a bright alert greenish blue often used to describe waters in the Caribbean or southern seas geography.

Terracotta - The unglazed, brownish-red earthenware (Which literally means in Italian, “baked earth”) is one of the oldest forms of fired clay.  It was used for sculpture and utilitarian vessels such as flower pots and water pipes.  It is still used for roof tiles and bricks.  We love the deep red-brown color and have worked to create that earthy feel in our custom letterpress ink mixes.

Sweet Cream - This color was inspired by the rich creamy color of egg-based ice creams and whipped desserts.  We think the color feels thick and luxurious- like a big round scoop of Haagen Daaz ice cream.

Celery – A light, bright, airy green named after the vegetable often called the healthiest food in the world due to its high antioxidant nutrients.  We just like that almost watery refreshing green color and have distilled it into letterpress ink!

Primrose Yellow- A light, bright yellow with a touch of green named after the delicate flowering plants of the same name.

Pussywillow - This is a lovely, delicate and unusual flowering plant, with furry catkins or buds that bloom in spring.  The blossoms are called catkins, because of their likeness to fine grayish fur covered tiny cats, thus the name “pussies”.   To create our color, We honed in on the almost green-gray in the subtle shadows of the Pussywillow plant.