031. Blue Interiors that Take Your Blues Away
From loud shouts to subtle whispers, different faces of blue
Blue is the world’s most common favourite colour. Not surprising given our sky and water world Earthly home. Perhaps the most versatile of colours for interiors, blue rooms can range from audacious to meditative. Today I have 5 rooms for you, ranging from loud shouts to subtle whispers.
I created the images using DALL-E 3 AI, Midjourney AI, and Pantone’s Studio app.
The loud shouts of VIVID GEOMETRY: A room for an open-hearted lover of the Earth, all its colours, all its inhabitants, including the invasive species known to itself as Homo sapiens. Bright and fuzzy with a big window to gaze respectfully at a magnificent tree canopy.
The excited squeals of STYLISH WHIMSY: I love this room. Quirky, bright, happy, and comfortable - a winning combination for my humble eyes and soul! Fun to think about what kind of person might live in this room…
The restive murmurs of STRONG ROOTS: Originally from the beautiful island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, I lived for two years in Nigeria and Senegal. During that period, I visited Ghana. There, in a museum, I stumbled upon a map of St. Croix staring back at me from the wall. It was part of an exhibit showing where slave ships took people from the Ghanaian coast. In the museum shop I found a book of Ghanian folktales. In it were stories of the trickster spider, Anansi. I grew up hearing Anansi stories, and I had always assumed he was a character local to St. Croix’s oral storytellers. A few days later at the slave fort, Elmina Castle, I stared out at the Atlantic Ocean through the Door of No Return. The door through which people walked, ankles chained, onto boats that carried them to the other side of the world against their will. Some of those people were my relatives.
The hushed chatter of NATURAL COMFORT: This is a kitchen where bread is kneaded, where jam is boiled from handpicked berries, and where holiday feasts are prepared over the course of many days… meaning that this is not my kind of kitchen ;-)! But my-oh-my it is a beauty to behold, is it not?!
The subtle whisper of DISTILLED PEACE: I will concede that sometimes in interiors, very infrequently, almost never… less is more ;-). I’m not into quiet minimalism, but if I were, my living room might look something like this.
FUN FACTS ABOUT BLUE:
Lapis lazuli, a rock of particularly vibrant shades of blue, has been used for thousands of years to to create beautiful art.
It was at times considered to be the colour of the gods, echoing the blue sky where they were thought to reside. Egyptians used it to colour art, jewelry, and cosmetics. It was a prized pigment among European artists during the Medieval and Renaissance periods, becoming even more expensive than gold. Many paintings of the Catholic Virgin Mary portray her in blue garments, pigmented with lapis lazuli.
The colour was used by masters including Vermeer, Raphael, and Botticelli. Vermeer was particularly fond it, and often used lapis lazuli in his paintings. It was this blue that he used in Girl With A Pearl Earring, painted in 1665. The painting now hangs in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, in the Netherlands, which is where I visited it with my little one, just a few weeks ago :-).
Thank you for your attention and I hope you enjoyed your time here!
Vanessa :-)