"Lapis, Turquoise, and Slate" 1/1.
Did you know that blue is an anomaly in nature? Many things we think of as "blue" only appear blue. It's optical trickery—birds' blue feathers, insects' blue wings, even blue eyes only seem blue. They contain no blue pigment. Their blue is a function of specialized frameworks and the scattering of light. If you pulverize a blue feather, it will no longer appear blue because its tiny reflective structures are damaged. It will look gray or brownish. Contrast that with beets- they remain red when crushed because their color comes from pigment.

Historically, painters know blue as the rarest and most expensive of colors because nature produces only a wee handful of blue pigments. A few minerals, such as lapis lazuli, can be ground to create blue pigment. True blue dyes can be conjured from a minute number of plants like woad and indigo.

Copyright retained by the artist. Michelle Louis, 2022, Created in Wisconsin, USA, 1/1 abstract.