Blue is What Made Me Beautiful

I have the feeling I shall return to the idea of painting a whale more than a few times. As is always the case with me, I begin with an image and a palette in my mind. I do a sketch, I think of colours. 

This time I would do a blue whale...and originally I wanted to use misty greys, portland greys, violets and muddy blues and beiges and create a very subdued image. I sketched my whale...and then proceeded to paint it tentatively....until along came the perfect blue! Prussian blue, and a whole whack of it....smoothed out across the back of my whale until I turned my round-headed brush in circles upon circles and produced the texture of my true blue beautiful whale. 

Blue is What Made Me Beautiful ~ Oil on Canvas 28" x 22"

So many thoughts went through my mind as I discovered my whale with her spout of butterflies. She is a creature of great strength and fragility, mystery and gentleness. One of the last things I painted was her eye....and I just sat down one night with my brush, and it opened up in front of me and blinked happily....and I was pleased with the wisdom in it, and the joy....the whale is the guardian of the oceans and all the unknown creatures that float within it...she knows about magic that we humans have no access to. She is a singular, confident, never-minding giant, and when she tells us that "Blue is What Made me Beautiful", we know what she means, and she knows us too.