Feeling blue? This will make you feel better.

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you know I’ve been painting exclusively in blue lately.

I was inspired by Lisa Congdon’s Creative Boot Camp on Creativebug, where she shows us how to paint using only one color.

Here is an example of her painting in red.

I started painting using 4 blue colors in my Sakura Koi Watercolor Set and got immediately hooked.

I didn’t have a goal of painting so many works in blue. But it’s one of my favorite colors because it’s soothing and calming. So I just kept painting in blues! (At the time of writing this article, I’ve painted in blue for 31 days straight. Wow!)

I like the challenge of using limited colors (and of course the limited timeline I set to complete a painting). Restrictions encourage creativity. The more limitations you set on your creative practice, the more creative you think!

Just think how you’d feel if you have a huge blank canvas with unlimited color palette and materials to play with, and you can paint whatever you wanted vs. someone tells you you need to draw a cat using just red and blue on a 4″x4″ piece of paper? See what I mean?

Of course, there is a danger of your practice becoming stagnant over time if you’re not intentional about working in a limited color palette.

When I feel my blue paintings are getting stale, I switch to different subject matters or add different elements. For example, I was painting still life at first, then abstract, and then more representational works.

One day, I did a lettering piece for one of my daily paintings and really enjoyed it, so I created a series of encouraging quotes in blue.

You know I love creating art with encouraging/motivational quotes! First of all, I do it because I need a positive reminder. And I know I’m not the only one who needs to hear it, so I like to share them 🙂

Art has the power to make you feel. When you see a powerful message represented in an art form, it goes directly to your heart, doesn’t it?

That’s how I feel about these paintings – somehow, these encouraging messages resonate with me on a deeper level than just hearing someone say it.

If you’re feeling blue today (pun so intended!), I hope these paintings will cheer you up! 🙂