Abstract painting inspired by lapis lazuli — deep blue with gold flecks by visionary artist Tonya Henderson, September color symbolism series.

Color Symbolism Series: Lapis Lazuli

This month's color doesn't ask you to discover anything new. It asks you to admit what you already know.

Lapis Lazuli, September's color, has been prized by human civilization for over 6,000 years, and across every culture that's touched it, the same theme repeats: this isn't a stone of new knowledge, but of recognized knowledge.

Let's get into why.

A Stone Older Than Recorded History

Lapis has been mined from the same mountains in Afghanistan since roughly 6000 BCE, making it one of the first luxury goods ever traded across ancient civilizations.

Egyptians ground it into powder for eye makeup, most famously worn by Cleopatra, believing it opened a kind of inner sight. It was carved into scarabs and placed inside royal tombs, meant to guide the soul and reveal truth in the afterlife.

Sumerian priests used it in temple ceremonies to bridge the earthly with the divine. And centuries later, Renaissance painters ground it into the pigment, ultramarine. The most expensive pigment in the Western world, reserved almost exclusively for the robes of the Virgin Mary. Painters were sometimes paid more for the pigment than for their own labor.

A color, quite literally, considered worthy of the divine.

Raw lapis lazuli stone showing deep blue color with gold pyrite flecks, the inspiration for this month's color symbolism exploration by Tonya Henderson.

The Spiritual Language of Lapis

Lapis is the stone of the third eye, which is the energy center tied to intuition and inner vision.

Here's what you can sit with: lapis doesn't generate new information. It confirms what's already sensed but not yet consciously claimed.

Truth rarely arrives as a lightning bolt. It arrives quietly as a persistent feeling, a thought you keep circling back to, or a sign you keep dismissing as coincidence.

I don't think those signs are random. They show up as a butterfly during a moment of transformation or a bird crossing your path at exactly the right moment. Not by chance but because life is communicating with you constantly. You only need to be willing to look, listen and receive.

This is what makes lapis different from other blues. Ordinary blue can feel distant, even melancholic. Lapis carries warmth within its depth. It has a lean toward violet and is flecked with gold that catches light like stars in a night sky. It's never flat. It's vast and full of light within that darkness.

Painting With Lapis — This Month's Technique

I want to share something from my own studio this month.

A while back, I sat down to work on this painting, and the color just wasn't calling to me that day. Instead of forcing it, I spent the day creating small abstract studies with muted colors, and I ended up placing one bold red focal point over all that quiet, softer color. It worked to give the whole piece somewhere for the eye to land.

I'm applying that same principle to this month's Lapis painting: keep most of the piece soft and muted, and let lapis blue be the single, concentrated focal point.

There's a lesson in that beyond technique. Truth doesn't need to dominate every inch of the canvas to be powerful. It just needs one clear, confident point of contact.

Work in progress studio painting by Tonya Henderson featuring lapis blue as a focal point over soft muted tones.

Mixing Notes

  • Base: Ultramarine blue — the same pigment historically ground from the actual stone
  • Depth: A touch of Prussian blue in shadow areas
  • Gold flecks: Sparse touches of gold or yellow ochre to suggest the pyrite inclusions found in real lapis
  • Avoid overmixing: real lapis is never uniform; let some texture and variation remain

The Artist Mindset Connection

This ties into Key #5 of my 10 Keys to Living as an Artist: decide your work is worth getting paid for.

Here's the connection: the same courage it takes to trust an inner truth you already sense is the courage it takes to trust that your work has value before anyone else confirms it.

You're not waiting for permission from a gallery, a critic, or a sale.

You already know.

You're just deciding whether to trust it.

What's Inside Patreon This Month

I'm going deeper into painting techniques, the artist mindset and the personal growth required for success inside my Patreon community.

If you're ready to keep building your art business with real structure and intention, the 10 Keys to Living as an Artist collection is there waiting for you.

→ Join here

The truth was never hidden. You were just waiting for permission to trust it.

— Tonya

P.S. — This month's videos go even deeper into the spiritual side of Lapis — truth, intuition, and the way life communicates through symbol. Watch on YouTube

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