Colour: Blue

Blue is next on the list for exploration.

Blue is a beautiful colour, full of harmony and has the wonderful effect of calming people - just think of staring out at a bright blue sky.

Blue is the colour of the ocean and the sky, it is full of depth. There are so many blues in the world, each one conveys a different feeling to the viewer.

Indigo has a long history as a dye and is the colour of blueberries and blue jeans! The first demonstration of peaceful disobedience led by Mahatma Gandhi in 1917 was in support of the indigo farmers. The process of extracting the pigment from the Indigo plant is lengthy and leaves the worker with indigo coloured hands!

Ultramarine is a vivid, deep blue that was widely used in paintings to produce the intense blues we still see today. The process to get the pigment from lapis lazuli is so complex that Ultramarine was more expensive than gold!

One of my favourite paintings, Girl in the Pearl Earring by Vermeer in 1665, uses Ultramarine mixed with lead white to create the blue in the head scarf. It is an amazing blue!

Another one of my favourite blues in Cerulean Blue, which is a synthetic blue developed in 1812. It is the paint used by Claude Monet in his paintings and give his paintings an amazing grey/blue. When I was teenager my mum and I spent a wonderful 4 days in Paris exploring the Musee D'Orsay. We spent a wonderful afternoon gazing at Monet's paintings.

The Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877

There are so many different blue's to explore, from the ones derived nature to synthetic pigments. Each one is calming and has an interesting story to tell....