Drawn Hard Lagoon

Old English dragan, to draw — past-participle of draw. As a color modifier, drawn implies a clear-and-line-and-mark quality, the crisp color of Old-Master-and-Modernist hand-drawn studio-and-life-class observational-drawing graphite-and-charcoal lines. Sits at the crisp-and-incised end of the grid, parallel to etched and drafted in usage.

Old English heard, firm / hard. As a color modifier, hard implies a stone-and-iron-and-bone quality, the visual register of hand-hard-and-firm stone-and-iron-and-bone hard-and-firm-and-resistant tactile-hardness-and-firmness surfaces under hard-and-firm tactile-hardness light. Sits at the modifier-and-texture end of the grid, parallel to forged and hewn in usage.

A shallow body of saltwater partially or fully enclosed by a barrier — coral atoll lagoons in the Pacific, Venice's Laguna Veneta, the Florida Keys' backcountry. The color refers to the average reflectance of a calm tropical lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical clarity of shallow water over white sand. Brighter than reef, cooler than aquamarine, with the postcard weight of a Pacific atoll seen from above.