All the colors of the rainbow, including the distasteful ones

In the background of Rogier van der Weyden's Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, there's a small man in an orange tunic peeing off the sea wall. We saw it in the MFA last week when we were passing through Boston on the way to Halifax.

James was intrigued. "How would you paint pee, anyway?"

"I think he used a very fine brush -- see how small that guy is? His pee would be about one brush hair wide -- and put in a little gold for the sparkle. He'd have to do something for the underlayer, though. I think a related color that's not yellow?"

"Why not? Oh, it'd make the pee too yellow. He'd have to be really thirsty for that to work."

"Right, and I don't think he's peeing over the sea wall because he's dehydrated. Maybe a light shade of green would work?"

"We could try it when we get home."

"We'll need to find some gold paint, but we could mix up the underlayer with what we've got already."

"Let's do it!"

Then we turned around. All the nice people behind us looked away as though they'd just been staring and didn't want that to be obvious.

Once we were no longer in public, James's color questions became more socially acceptable. "What would happen if you took purple and added pink?" "Fuschia!" "What if you added more pink?" "Raspberry!" "What if you added MORE pink?" "Rhubarb! But the kind you get at the regular store, not the kind you get at the farmer's market in summer. That's too green." "Okay. But what if you added MORE pink?" "Uh, Barbie's car?" "I'm not sure I like that color."