anxiety #172 - a crimson lake pencil...

...or more to the point, where is my Crimson Lake pencil?
I came across a sweet pencil brooch by Neil Thomas and it made me think about my favourite Derwent colour, Crimson Lake.
It's an important day in a young design student's life when they get a set of Derwent pencils. A gleaming row of pure colouring potential. You realise that finishing assignments will be so much easier. How could you have been living without Deep Cadmium? Wouldn't pictures now have a greater depth when rendered with Kingfisher Blue, and Burnt Yellow Ochre?
But the colour for me was definitely Crimson Lake, a deep red, leaning slightly toward purple. It's strong and powerful, yet warm and luxurious. I imagine that similar to Alain de Botton's views on why people are attracted to different styles of architecture, we have favourite colours because psychologically they represent characteristics and strengths we want to possess. They remind us of everything we could be. My Crimson Lake pencil was quick to become one of the shortest in the box.
There are a few gaps in the Derwent box these days. Things go missing during moves and assignment all nighters, but the only pencil I ever need is the number 20. When I realised it was gone I searched through innumerable pencil cases and tins, but it seemed hopeless. I'm sure it's living in some drawer, or at the bottom of a shoe box in the shed, it'll turn up when I least expect it.
In the meantime, if you see a spare Crimson Lake, could you send it my way? I know it's only a pencil, but life's felt a a shade more dull since it went missing.

N.B. I apologise if this post is, as one detractor called it, "dicky". Sadly, it's just how I am...