Domes of Blue

Entrance to Blue Mosque,  watercolor on Yupo 14x11"

All over the world, throughout history, various absolutely grand and architecturally unique and beautiful places of worship have been built. Is it to glorify God, or to indulge the person who conceived and bank rolled it,  or to admire the talents and skills of artists and artisans who built it, a testimony of what man is capable of creating?  First look at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul last year during our trip was through the massive doors. I liked the multiple blue domes  - the repeating shapes and colors with sunlight streaming in. Looking at all that marble all around, I was suddenly reminded of Rabindranath Tagore's quote: While God waits for His Temple to be built of love, men bring stones.  

The look of marble was ideal to paint on yupo -- layering paint and creating texture by dabbing plastic wrap and paper towel.  I had to repeat the process of adding and lifting paint several times on the outer walls by the doors to make them darker. I also tried several times in the past couple of days to photograph the painting and this is the closest I could come to duplicate the  actual paint colors.