Blog #5: Grays and Greens

A couple short minutes form where I live there is a small patch of nature that separates my apartment complex and a parking lot. It used to be that this area was a serious fire hazard; packed to the brim with wheat colored grass, dried bushes, and piled up dead plant life unable to adequately decompose. However, since then the area has undergone a remarkable transformation. At some point, the patch was cleared of the dead overgrowth, the ground underneath was exposed to the elements, and after several months of pretty consistent heavy rainfall it is now a healthy haven of natural goodness. Green plant life has completely overtaken the ex-plant-graveyard and turned what was once easy kindling into something beautiful and pleasant. As I was walking back from school a couple days ago, the contrast between this patch of life and the environment startled me. The sky was a dull gray, overcast with a blanket of clouds, which perfectly foiled the patch of bright green grasses and bushes and shrubbery. For a moment, I could only marvel at the competition between the two moods, but after a while I realized something. In nature, it is more common that the bright colors are amplified by the presence of the darker ones, rather than everything being one or the other. The bright colors really and truly pop when they are offset with darkness, or just contrast in general. When they lie alone we can't see how magnificently the colors thrive, but when used in conjunction they create a chromatic concoction that really works wonders.