blue doors, azure wall

blue doors, azure wall,

boy in orange jacket and pants,

bushy-tailed orange dog

The blue so often seen on doors in Peru is the same color as the water of Lake Titicaca: ultramarine, sapphire, cobalt, lapis lazuli. The aqua paint on the wall, also a favorite color, is seen in everything from aquamarine plastic bags to electric blue plastic tarps and turquoise plastic pails. On the color wheel orange is opposite blue, and when they are together they not only complement but also compliment each other. The mango orange of the boy's clothes and the burnt sienna of the dog's fur pop out in delightful contrast with the blue doors. This combination of blue and orange reminds me of the intense cerulean of the sky and the persimmon buffalo grass in autumn on our farm in the Flint Hills of Kansas. When we moved into our stone house, built in 1840, I wanted to bring the outside inside, so I painted the walls prairie grass orange and the ceiling sky blue.