13. Lochan

Lochan is Scots for a small loch or lake, and there is something undeniably deep and watery about this colour.

Sometimes, when I’m trying to understand a yarn shade, I find it helpful to draw or paint it – in this case with two shades of blue ink.

The act of mixing the colour helps me to understand something of it… of what it is made. There is something deep and dark in this blue; something a little teal-y; something like navy, but more complex.

My beloved, paint-spattered boiler suit used for all decorating purposes is the colour of Lochan.

I bought these many years ago from an Ironmongers in Reading. They have helped me decorate many rooms and through some muddy gardening times! I love their indestructible quality and the big pockets.

It was a wonderful discovery to find that our new front door is also pretty close to the colour of Lochan…

…though they are slightly lighter in value, I feel that these 17p stamps also speak to the teal-y, navy, deep-water feeling of this blue.

Down by the sea there is a beach hut that is a more precise match for Lochan…

…and a beautiful, aging old boat that is this colour, too.

But my favourite examples of Lochan lie along the tideline on just one stretch of beach, near Bexhill…

…where mussels are washed up like little seams of blue between white shells and the golden pebbles of the shingle.

Beach-combing for colours, I spend a long time trying to show just what it is that I can see; how this ball of blue sings to these shells. The interior edges are dark Lochan; the shells look as though smudged with the colour, like it was applied in a soft wash over their white and brown ridges.

I marvel at how I hadn’t really registered the colour of these common shellfish until my ball of Lochan locked onto them like a magnet.

I think about bringing some home to photograph more closely… but I don’t want to take anything from this tangled sea-edge glory. I notice, too, that the most brilliant colours are to be found where the sea has soaked the shells. Better leave them here, wet and glittery, for others to discover like so many sapphires along the waters’ edge.

What deep blue treasures has Lochan revealed to you?

These posts coincide with the KDD & Co. Colour Compass advent calendars. Each day, throughout December I’ll be opening my calendar beside you, and exploring the yarn shade that is revealed for that day. Read more about these posts here, and prepare for a few weeks of polychromatic fun as we discover the shades together and revel in their suggestive associations and creative possibilities together! Even if you don’t have a calendar, I hope you’ll love exploring colours with me, and thinking about each shade as it appears, and how it is connected with the everyday colours of your life.