WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD! acrylic on canvas

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD! acrylic on canvas, 28x22, in exhibition and for sale at the restaurant/bar  Inn at the Park, Spruce and 6th St., San Diego, California. It seemed the perfect painting to start this New Year 2014. Happy New Year!

I was reading recently about Delacroix. He admired Rubens, was a great reader, and very curious. Eugene Delacroix was in constant search of new techniques.  He liked to prepare backgrounds, many of them, without any idea how he would later use them. Then, when he was ready to paint, he would look at the 20 or 30 backgrounds, and select the one to start his new painting.

King Louis

King Louis, pencil and charcoal on paper, 8x5" (20x13 cm.), 2001. Available: $200 US mailing included within USA.
In addition to a physics and a chemistry, color has a geography. Let's take indigo as an example: In the Middle Ages, the best indigo blue came from Baghdad, in modern Iraq. The blue that is still the most expensive natural pigment is manufactured from the semi-precious lapiz-lazuli, until recently mined in Afghanistan only. It is often called "ultramarine", because it comes from "beyond the sea".
King Louis, lapiz y carbon sobre papel. Disponible : $ 200 dolares, precio de envio incluido dentro de USA. 
Ademas de una fisica y una quimica, el color tiene una geografia. Por ejemplo el indigo: en la Edad Media el mejor indigo venia de Baghdad, en el Iraq de hoy. El azul que todavia es el pigmento natural mas caro es el lapiz-lazuli, hasta hace poco solo se conseguia en Afghanistan. A menudo se le llama "ultramarino", porque viene de "mas alla del mar".