Blue and orange are complimnentary colors. That means that they are opposite from each other on the color wheel...opposite ends of a circle that connects all the colors. It also means that when they are mixed together - i.e. as in blending paint - they dull each other. However, if they are placedside by side in their pure forms, they intensify each other.
One of the hardest things to paint well is the sky, and one of the hardest skies to paint is a sunset sky. Last night, I was on a ferry traversing Puget Sound in Northwest Washington. As the dark mounded islands slipped by, the sun was setting. Blue and orange, held suspended together, seemingly blended, yet brilliant and distinguishable in both their pure colors oflight fading to evening gray.
Nature can do that. Hold the opposites in perfectly balanced and mingled harmony...distinct, yet intimately blended. It's an astounding feat.
As I watched the sky, I was mindful of having just finished a week visiting one side of my family, and being headed toward another week of visiting the other side of my family. Two sides...as different as blue and orange. I fit into them both. The trick always is to stay autonomous enough to compliment and brighten the effects of being togehter...and not so blended and enmeshed as to dull ourselves or each other. It indeed is an astounding feat if we can pull it off. Sometimes I'm blue in an orange family, sometimes I'm orange...and vice versa. Sometimes we get a smattering of purple in there, and even green.
I think we've gotten better at it over the years. Sometimes we lapse into a hazy gray, or even a darkening thunderstorm of heat and high pressure, and sometimes we glow in a unified sunny day. But, if, when we are all together, we can manage a sunset of closely mingled, yet not completely mixed, complimentary blues and oranges, purples and yellows, red and greens...it is quite simply... asounding. A gift. A blessing.
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