My Favorite Chapters

 

Untitled

Digital Painting

But one of Turner’s favorite reds may well have been cinnabar— which he used in its manufactured form, vermilion, and which Pliny described as the result of an epic struggle by an elephant and a dragon. These two troublemakers were always fighting, Pliny recounted, and the battle eventually ended with the dragon—evidently a rather snaky one—wrapping its coils around its heavy enemy. But as the elephant fell it crushed the dragon with its weight and they both died. The merging of their blood made cinnabar.

Finlay, Victoria. Color (p. 178). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

This short tale was entirely new to me when I read it. It created a vivid image in my mind, and as someone who loves folklore and fairytales, I was drawn to creating an illustration for this story.

Untitled

Acrylic paint on body, photographed

The British tend to think of woad as a war paint—a symbol of the fierceness of Ancient Britons before the Romans conquered the country nearly two thousand years ago.

Finlay, Victoria. Color (p. 340). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Some historians have suggested that Caractacus may not have needed to paint himself from a fermenting woad vat because he was already permanently painted. 

(p. 343). 

(black on pale skin tends to go blue),

(p. 344)

Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed reading about methods of tattooing in chapter nine, as I have several tattoos, all of which are black and gray. While they're only a few years old, they've already lost some of their brilliance and will continue to dull and fade over time, much like the black ink going blue described in the book. My tattoos will never turn a bright blue, like in the photo, but I was inspired by the text to cover them in blue paint, reminiscent of the tattoos described in the chapter.

Babe In Blue

Water color and colored pencil

9"x12"

In parts of France and Spain, even until the twentieth century, parents of a sick child would promise the Virgin Mary that if the child recovered, he or she would be dressed in blue from hat to boot in gratitude. In French this was called “enfant voué au bleu.”

Finlay, Victoria. Color (p. 312). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Although only a brief mention in the chapter, the charming description of “enfant voué au bleu” brought to mind an image of a young Victorian era child bundled up in blue. Since I had not used watercolor for any of the previous assignments, I decided to combine watercolor and colored pencil to create this illustration.