Blue
First a short history of the broad color “blue” and a persuasive presentation to sway you to claim blue as your favorite color.
Close your eyes and imagine the clear sky over a bright and clean ocean. It’s all blue. Blue carries significant natural, spiritual, and medicinal influence throughout history. Blue is everywhere, from the color of Cleopatra’s eyelids to the chemical reactions in chemistry to the walls of hospitals.
Not only was blue used in the Eastern part of the world, but in the Western World as well. Famous paintings depicting the Virgin Mary use Ultramarine-colored paints made from Lapiz Lazuli creating rich blues to show religious importance. Ultramarine Blue was also used in Buddhist paintings to show religious significance. The stone, Lapiz Lazuli, was worth just as much as gold at the time. The value of the material made it even more significant in religious and fine-art painting.
Cerulean Blue was later created using the elements Cobalt and Tin. This color blue always reminds me of the movie “The Devil Wears Prada,” where Andy comes in wearing a cerulean-colored sweater, and Miranda goes on a tangent about the significance of the color’s history. Cerulean was also named the “Color of the Century” in 1999.
Caribbean Blue
As we now know, blue has a long and influential history, but what about Caribbean Blue?
At the beginning of this, I said to close your eyes and imagine the sky and the ocean. Now, focus on the ocean and the waves. The color “Caribbean Blue” is in reference to the clear blue-green tropical water in the Caribbean Sea. There is a range of light to dark Caribbean blue. The light end of the spectrum is reminiscent of shallow tides while dark Caribbean blue looks closer to deep waters miles out from shore.
The Caribbean is located North of the Equator in the Tropic of Cancer And East of Central America. This area of the ocean is best known for its incredibly rich culture, food, sights, music, and more. However, I will be focusing on the sights of this area.
I grew up on Saint Croix in the USVI and that’s where I fell in love with water and the color Caribbean blue. Below is a photo of Christensted which was about 10 mins from where I lived.
St. Croix was where I learned to swim, paint, write, sing, and everything that brings me happiness now. I very closely associate that color with most of my core childhood memories and a time when I was 100% truly happy. And now after researching, I know that the color creates a calm atmosphere and generally relaxed feelings.
One of my favorite musical artists, Enya, has a song named “Caribbean Blue.” and I have the YouTube video embedded below. Not only is the music stunning but so are the visuals. The use of the 3/4 signature and vocal layering with synth creates a water-like sound. This was just one further reason as to why I chose Caribbean Blue as my focused color.
Over the summer I was messing around with color and texture and I created a few pieces using Caribbean blue as the main color is Caribbean Blue. The left is a painted portrait focusing on lighting and contrast. On the right is a colored pencil drawing of waves.
The last part of the project was to create three sketches of Caribbean Blue. My color in another language is “Muir an Cairibe” which is Irish for the Caribbean Sea and is the closest translation for Caribbean Blue. I chose Irish because Enya (the artist behind the song “Caribbean Blue”) is Irish and my family is Irish-American.
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