Confessions of a Color Obsessed Artist

"Blue Saucer with Apple"
5X7Oil on Masonite
Available

I have a confession to make. I have been obsessed with a color again. It's an elusive color, or maybe I should say it's a variation of a color with nuances, subtle yet so enticing it has had me looking for it everywhere. I first saw it at a designer showhouse about four years ago. A decorator had painted a bedroom in this color and then hinted at it in other areas of the room with linens. I almost swooned. Then I saw it a couple of years later in a painting by Julian Merrow Smith. It was a tea cup tucked into the upper corner of the painting. He also used the saucer in a couple of other paintings and, again, I found myself coveting that color. It was the perfect compliment to it's opposite. So the search has been on. I've looked everywhere for just that cup and saucer, or something more or less like it....a pottery bowl, a ceramic anything, fabric, anything, everywhere. Couldn't find it ....and then a couple of weeks ago I was shopping at one of my favorite antique venues and, out of the "blue," there it was. The very cup and saucer I had been seeking. And blue it is. But it isn't. It's between the sea and the sky, between aqua and heaven somewhere. I've always loved blue. I have collections of blue and white china pieces that I have gathered over the years. But those are the deeper indigo / ultra-marine blue. In printing this is called "reflex blue." Simple, like ink. But the coveted blue I sought and found is somewhere else. It's Caribbean blue maybe, like the water you see in those commercials for cruise lines, the blue that makes you swoon and crave a trip to the ocean in some tropical paradise.

So now you know the secret life of a color coveter. I'm relieved I found it...now I can paint it when ever I want to!! Maybe I just need a trip to the Caribbean!! :-)