Drafted Sunup Teal

Old English draht, draft — past-participle of draft. As a color modifier, drafted implies a clear-and-line-and-measured quality, the crisp color of Mid-Century-Modern hand-drafted architectural-and-engineering studio-drawing precision-tool-rendered lines. Sits at the crisp-and-incised end of the grid, parallel to drawn and plotted in usage.

English compound sun + up, sun-up. As a color modifier, sunup implies a first-light-and-eastern-horizon quality, the visual register of clear-sky eastern-horizon sunrise-and-first-light Rayleigh-scattered atmospheric Belt-of-Venus pink-and-orange surfaces under sunrise eastern-horizon light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to rise and wake in usage.

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.