Blue Crayons

I took all the blues out of my crayon box.

There are eight of them: blue, bluetiful, cornflower, indigo, cerulean, cadet, blue green, and sky blue. Nine if you count blue violet.

The blues were out because I was drawing an image from a dream. I couldn’t decide which blue matched the water in my dream, so I started making waves with plain blue.

It wasn’t right. So I drew over it with blue green.

I liked the effect, so I took another crayon, and another, making waves with all the blues.

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My little crayon drawing suddenly had a quality of motion and texture, just like real water.  

I liked the effect so much, I told my artist/teacher friend about it. She said, “you know what that’s called, don’t you? It’s ‘monochromatic.’”

Of course I know the word, but I never tied it to a feeling before. Now I have a glimpse of what artists feel when they put certain colors together.

I was inspired to do a “study on blue” with my crayons:

It makes me smile, the way these colors wanted to be seen.