Hope this helps for item #2: a) You can sort by total bill then reset the index to this column b) Use palette="Blue" to use this color to scale your chart from light blue to dark blue (if dark blue to light blue then use palette="Blues_d")
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns
%matplotlib inline
df=pd.read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wesm/pydata-book/master/ch08/tips.csv", sep=',')
groupedvalues=df.groupby('day').sum().reset_index()
groupedvalues=groupedvalues.sort_values('total_bill').reset_index()
g=sns.barplot(x='day',y='tip',data=groupedvalues, palette="Blues")