Voice lesson #2 on imagery

Consider this extract from Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
The many men, so beautiful! 
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
[...]
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
 

Think of a cat or a dog you can describe easily.  First, write a description which reveals a positive attitude toward the animal.  Then think of the same animal and write a description which reveals a negative attitude.  Remember that the animal’s looks do not change; only your attitude changes.  Use imagery rather than explanation to create your descriptions.

Voice lesson #1 on imagery

Consider:
She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again.  Edna heard her father’s voice and her sister Margaret’s.  She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree.  The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch.  There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air.
-Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Write a paragraph in which you create a scene through auditory imagery.  The purpose of your paragraph is to create a calm, peaceful mood.  Use one olfactory image to enhance the mood created by auditory imagery.

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Voice lesson #1 on detail

Until I returned to Cuba, I never realized how many blues exist.  The aquamarines near the shoreline, the azures of deeper waters, the eggshell blues beneath my grandmother’s eyes, the fragile indigos tracking her hands.  There’s a blue, too, in the curves of the palms, and the edges of the words we speak, a blue tinge to the sand and the seashells and the plump gull on the beach.  The mole by Abuela’s mouth is also blue, a vanishing blue.
-Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban

Choose a color and describe a scene using at least three varieties of that color.  Try to mix details of landscape and people.