Dave HuggardIt turns out that the Green Necklace is … green. At least, partly. The 7.5km trail looping through suburban North Vancouver is also grey and beige, brick red for one block, and far-away-look blue in places. Unless, that is, you’re looking for highlights, then anything goes.
This is what I did: I walked the trail, taking two photos on each block. One was “representative” of the predominant colour of that block. The other was an “accent”, a bit of colour that caught my highly non-objective eye. I edited the photos to bring out the colour, then compiled them along a map of the trail.
This is the representative colour map:
The long swath of grass-green Grand Boulevard stands out on the east side, along with patches of cedar-green and hedge-green elsewhere (and the more lurid green of the artificial turf fields along Jones Avenue). Greys and beiges rule in the residential and institutional blocks on the north and south sides, enhanced by a couple vast expanses of asphalt, and one assertive stretch of riprap that would make the Stone Age monument builders proud. I often lament the endless grey stucco of North Vancouver, especially when the weather is also grey and stucco-like, but there is a subtilty there that maybe I will come to appreciate one day. Finally, three blocks were highlighted by views of mountains or ocean, in the blue of atmospheric perspective.
Now, the accent colour map is a different thing altogether. I let my magpie eye take over – Look, bright, shiny! There is the rainbow of sidings, trims, and doors where the conscientious objectors to grey stucco live, purples of spring flowers, yellows of warning signs and speed bumps, bright blues and greens of Official Signs, pink of construction flagging, and the glorious red of dog poop bins. What a world it would be if the community centres and roads and lawns were those colours! Of course, then I would be hunting around until I found that exciting patch of neutral grey with a slight hint of taupe…
Geeky notes: I made the images by taking the original picture and editing in PhotoShop: 1) Crop to main colour area, 2) Select a pixel that is the target colour, 3) Copy the layer, 4) Paint the entire top layer with the target colour at an opacity of 80%, 5) Take the bottom layer, desaturate it, and use the “Find Edges” tool to highlight edges, 6) Switch the top layer to “Multiply”, 7) Lighten the bottom edge layer if it is too dominant, 8) Flatten layers and save. This takes out most non-colour detail, while still suggesting what the colour comes from.. PowerPoint was remarkably easy for drawing the shape for each block and filling it with the image.