Looking through the paints at the art shop the other day, I had to check the names closely as the plastic bottles made it hard to tell precisely which colour paint they might hold.
I found a ‘burnt sienna’, but the closest to ‘crimson lake’ was ‘berry wine’, and there was no ‘Prussian blue’ or ‘ochre’. I definitely think my childhood was the richer for having the old names – I don’t think I’d have liked to paint with ‘glazed carrot’ or ‘pumpkin’.
I was a bit taken aback, though, to find both the bottles in the photo labelled as “plaid”.
Having decided that they were actually black and white, I consulted the Scottish Register of Tartans, but still haven’t worked out which clan they might belong to.
don't confuse the narrator 