A look down the front end of the kayak. Here the pattern I have chosen for the boat becomes apparent. Though all the wood is Western Red Cedar, this wood comes in a wide variety of colors. From white, to tan, to redwood to chocolate brown, one has a range of colors out of which a pattern may be formed.
The pattern for my kayak is as follows: The hull is mostly a dark tan. The sheerline (separating the deck from the hull) is light. The area around the cockpit is a similar light color. The top-central deck along the bow is a nice, uniform tan color, which flares out to surround the cockpit, and is only four strips wide towards the front. Running along the edge of this region is a pair of almost white strips, which set apart the regions in the front of chocolate brown. Coming down the aft top deck is a wide band of reddish-brown, which splits apart and tapers down to form a border around the cockpit area. Another pair of white strips borders this red area, setting off an as-yet unstripped area of undecided color (depends on what's left--most likely a tan sort). The pattern has made the work harder on me (especially for my first kayak), and some of the strips (esp. the cockpit border) have been bent to their limits. But, such a graceful design deserves graceful lines of color.