Old Mission Plaster - Color A Day #33

Window, Mission La Purisima Concepcion

My son attends a Public School in California.  He is in 4th Grade, which of course means one thing for certain: a Mission Project.   It is a 4th grade rite-of-passage.  So in order to facilitate this project-making extravaganza we piled in the car (road trip!) and drove off to see Mission La Purisima Concepcion, near Lompoc, CA.   It was pure luck-of-the-draw that my kid was assigned this mission.  Good luck, actually.   This particular mission is a State Historic Park, with it’s buildings fully restored by the CCC in the 1930′s  in what was apparently one of the largest historical restoration and reconstruction projects in the US, complete with authentic furnishings, helpful docents, and assorted livestock.  We took the docent tour (along with about a dozen other 4th grade families), and each of the 4th graders got to pose with a mission soldier’s spear and sword, and they each got to ring the mission bell at the top of the bell tower.  There are miles of hiking trails on the expansive property as well.  We spent the entire day wandering around taking photos of the lovely grounds.
The colors of this place were muted, aged.  Lovely.  Over the course of the next few days I’ll focus on some of the colors.  But for today, I’m looking at the plaster.  There’s just such beauty in real, old, aging plaster.  Soft white, tinged with yellow, maybe a hint of brown or grey added for depth.  Loved the mission trip, and the colors it revealed.
Color A Day #33 – Old Mission Plaster

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Color A Day #19 - Smog

 Today's color is....Smog.

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, Smog.  That icky, thick layer of air that hangs over large metropolitan areas around the globe.  Nobody likes smog.  It's bad for our lungs, after all.  I live near LA.  I see the stuff on a regular basis.   I' see it anytime I fly into LAX.  Or, when heading down to the city floor after a trip to the mountains. There the layer of sludge sits.  Smog is not a sight anyone particularly appreciates.

Image by Metro Transportation Library and Archive via Flick

  But, have you ever considered the COLOR of Smog? Forget the  negative elements for a moment, and look only at the color itself.  It's really an interesting, subtle color.   A variety of taupe.  Not pink, or purple.  Not brown or tan, not altogether gray...but a combination of all those elements.  And I'm here to suggest that smog (the color, at least) is actually kind of pretty.  

by Inky Compost on Etsy

by Spooky Shades on Etsy

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