091: The Feeling of Colour

1 Painting - 1 Game - 1 Book

1.

The Feeling of Colour — paintings by Raphy Mendoza (Me)

From the Community

Earlier this week, I was speaking with a friend of mine and I was encouraging him to share one of his short stories here on Three Things Weekly. Jovially, he called me a hypocrite because I never share my work here - or anywhere.

He is correct. So this week, I'm sharing with you some of my paintings. Most days, I manage to make time to sit at my table and work on these tiny (A6 size) watercolours. I tape up 8x watercolour paper on to a large sheet of MDF that I use as a drawing board. I work anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours at a time. I paint on all 8 pieces simultaneously so the layers on each piece gets to dry - it's like a really un-suspenseful game of watercolour roulette.

Sometimes, the images come from nothing - the peaceful, silent kind you get when you’re in creative flow.

Sometimes, they come from a particularly vivid dream.

Sometimes, there's no image coming at all. When that happens, I methodically work at my colour washes to create a welcoming space for an image to emerge.

Sometimes, a poem shows up instead.

A lot of these images are more recent. But I also wanted to share a Zine I put together during the first lockdown in 2020, which features some of my poetry and a handful of beautiful quotes that resonated with me at the time.

In fact, this zine was the very first seed that grew into Three Things Weekly 🖤.

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2.

Colour the Map — a low-tech game by Simon Tatham

From the Internet

The game is to fill in the shapes using these four colours, with no two adjacent spaces being the same colour. It’s a lot of fun, and be prepared to lose up to an hour of productivity today.

Despite my self-imposed uniform wardrobe of only black shirts, I actually love colour. Not so much how colours look (also enjoyable), but more so how they feel.

Like when you listen to the most beautiful song, sung by Mercedes Sosa and it feels like your brain is being bathed in gold honey. 🍯

Or the sensation of overwhelming relief when you see the earthy brown greens of a forest in springtime - like you've been crawling around on 1% and someone finally plugs you into the mains to charge. 🌱

Or the comforting yellow-white of cocoa butter or vanilla ice cream, like someone's giving you a warm hug from the inside. 🍨

Anyway... I like this game, and I like these colour hues. They’re satisfying, like a fresh stack of sugar paper from the art supplies cupboard in secondary school. 🔖

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3.

The Giver — a novel by Lois Lowry

From the Library

I first came across this book when I was about 8 or 9 years old. One of my sisters gave me a copy - I remember the last 6 pages were torn and sellotaped together.

I was enthralled by it then, but as with many children's stories, I didn't appreciate its depth until I was much older. The story is set in a seemingly utopian future in which society is harmonious, the citizens have a clear assignment that matches who they are and each child is nurtured to their talents. There is no war, poverty or sickness - no suffering.

There is no love or joy. No search for meaning. There is no colour (literally).

I won't give much more away… but can you imagine a world with no colour? How bland it would be to eat chocolate-covered strawberries and not see the red jewels against the silky brown? How boring, to look over the London skyline and see only white dots against a black sky.

It's no utopia at all. Perhaps amidst war, disasters, injustice and other craziness that we human beings choose to indulge in... that we have a choice at all in this world we have is the only utopia there is.

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If you’re a subscriber and have something you have longed to share, this is your official invitation.