Cool Wink Verdigris

Old English cōl, of low temperature — used as a color modifier as the complement to warm. Cool gray, cool blue: the optical impression of a slight blue-green shift, even within otherwise warm or neutral hues. Sits across the crisp, hushed, pale, and neutral buckets.

Old English wincian, to-close-eye-briefly. As a color modifier, wink implies a brief-and-coy-and-twinkling quality, the visual register of star-and-candle-flame-wink hand-brief-and-coy-and-twinkling star-and-candle-flame-and-distant-window winked-and-brief-and-coy-and-twinkling surfaces under star-and-candle-flame-and-distant-window twinkling-and-coy-and-brief night-window-light. Sits at the modifier-and-mood end of the grid, parallel to blink and glint in usage.

The basic copper carbonate that forms on weathered copper and bronze — the pigment scraped from oxidized metal and used in Renaissance painting before being supplanted by more stable greens. The color refers to a thick verdigris on aged copper roofing or the Statue of Liberty's surface: a soft, slightly muted blue-green with the powdery finish of mineral oxide. Cooler than patina, warmer than seafoam, with the archaeological weight of a mineral made by time.