Last month, I was browsing through some digital paintings I created even before I created this website. If I were a physical painter, this is akin to looking through old drawers, full of old paintings and dust. Thankfully though, I don’t have to deal with dusk or damage because I do work digitally. In my browsing, I noticed a digital painting that had some potential, moved it to the wallpapers in-progress folder, and refined it a bit. But alas other projects were more important, and it was put on the back burner.

Then about the middle of this month, I decided this wallpaper in-progress needed a decent name, so I did what I usually do when naming things: I opened my wonderful thesaurus. (And by opened, I mean I opened Apple’s Dictionary app.) It was certainly a liquid-looking piece, perhaps I could incorporate that into the name.

Fall in Love your Thesaurus

When choosing a name for anything, except perhaps a child, using a thesaurus is extremely helpful because it exposes you to works and deeper meaning than you could ever know from daily conversation.

Because this wallpaper features a lot of blue, I searched for blue. (Am I going through a blue phase like Picasso did?) Word origins fascinate me, and I noticed that the word origin of “ultramarine” reference something called “Lapis Lazuli.” I had never heard of this before and discovered that it was a type of beautiful blue stone that’s been mined in Afghanistan for the past 6,500 years! Apparently the ancient Egyptians favored the stone for amulets and ornaments. Lapis jewelry has been found at Predynastic Egyptian sites among other places. The way different hues of blue swirled around in the stone reminded me of the hues in this wallpaper, and I decided on a name that seemed fitting.

Define Procrastination

Fast forward to today when I opened the wallpaper in-progress again, intent on finally finishing it. Some may say my delay was procrastination, but putting tasks on the back burner is a form of intelligent prioritizing. Procrastination only occurs if you put off a task that you truly need to do by a certain time.

Compelled to fix a few small flaws, I started playing with the smudge tool and soon discovered that I could create an interesting river-like effect. After some fine-tuning, I’m proud to finally present: Liquid Lazuli. Checkout the widescreen and fullscreen sizes.

From the color blue to ancient Egypt, it’s amazing what you can learn by just following your digital nose.

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