Coloring the Page: Precious Stones


For the last entry in the Color Thesaurus series, I thought it’d be fun to look at hues and descriptions for precious stones. These are great not only as descriptors, but as possible inspiration for stand-alone objects or trinkets in your story.

Agate: Fine grained and fibrous with color banding or irregular clouding; can occur in a variety of colors
Amethyst: Purplish to violet transparent quartz
Basalt: Volcanic rock, often has a gray porous appearance
Beryl: Pale green to olive yellow
Carnelian or Cornelian: Vibrant orangeish red
Chert: A milky white stone, sometimes with veins of rust or brown
Chrysoprase: Apple green gemstone
Diamond: Naturally colorless or white crystal
Emerald: Brilliant green beryl
Garnet: Usually a very dark rich red
Jacinth: A red to reddish orange
Jasper: Rusty brown
Onyx: Features a variety of color bands, from flesh-tone or white to pure black
Opal: Translucent, often milky gemstone with a variety of other colors within
Quartz: Hard and crystalline; can occur in a number of colors
Sapphire: Brilliant blue, sometimes approaching deep indigo
Sard: Deep orange red to brownish red
Sardonyx: Alternating reddish brown and white bands
Topaz: Often golden in appearance
Turquoise: Blue to greenish blue

12 comments:

  1. And the names are colorful to match. Chert - everybody say it out loud!

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  2. this is a magical post! i love finding new ways to describe colors!
    hey, you couldve done this for a to z!

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  3. just looked back at some other color posts, you did so much work! i am bookmarking this stuff!

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  4. Such nice sounding words! Unfortunately, my WIP doesn't have much colour in it, lol. But I'll bear this in mind!

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  5. Jewel tones, perfect way to bring out new colors. I love it!

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  6. That IS a good list, but I read somewhere that said jasper was a black precious gem, which is why I named one of my black cats Jasper. Now I discover he's not as jaspery as I thought!

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  7. It reads great. I know nothing about that sort of stuff. The list would be a good thing for me to keep handy.

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  8. Alex - I almost used chert once for a novel! :)

    Optimistic - I'm glad you do.

    Tara - Thanks! I'm so happy they're helpful. I know I use 'em All. The. Time.

    Nick - So, for you, I need to list shades of gray, huh. Wait, isn't there a book... :)

    J.A. - Thank YOU.

    Margo - You're welcome.

    MS - Some of these surprised me a little too. But I did look all of them up.

    Cherie - Thanks.

    Rusty - Glad it could help.

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  9. Such lovely sounding words... Instead of referring to something as Barney purple, I can get all fancy and say that it has an amethyst tone. =)

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