My inspiration for this painting was an upcoming juried competition with the specific “Blue” theme. I have not completed many paintings with blue as the predominant color. This challenged me to produce a piece of art with all the blue hues in my paintbox: thalo, cobalt, ultramarine, indanthrone, indigo, cerulean and prussian blue.

Most of my acrylic collages contain a full range of colors. Completing a monochromatic piece was a fun and exciting challenge. I worked from my personal reference photo and began cutting the shapes of the flowers without any preliminary drawing. I used parts of an Iowa road map for the background to add interest to the composition. Also integrated into the painting are a bit of sparkles and layered dark blues on the vase.