I'm thankful for many things in my life these days. And especially today...for blue sky and sunshine in Portland...in January. Staring up at the beautiful clear cerulean blue sky, I wondered about the origin of one of my favorite paint colors.
According to Wikipedia, the word cerulean is derived from the Latin word caeruleus, "dark blue, blue or blue-green", which in turn probably derives from caelulum, diminutive of caelum, "heaven, sky". The cerulean pigment color, made of cobalt(II) stannate, was discovered by Andreas Höpfner in 1805, was first called corruleum or coeruleum and sold by George Rowney in England. Now, cerulean is made of cobalt chormate.
The first time I brushed cerulean blue across a wet piece of watercolor paper, it was like magic. I felt like a fairy waving my wand and creating a beautiful, summer day with my paint brush. Take a little cerulean on one edge of your brush, a little cobalt on the other and voila, a sunny summer day.
Start with a brush of cadimium red, wet into wet, on watercolor paper, follow it with a brush of cerulean and you'll get those blue, grey clouds that gather at sunset.
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