The color blue has a power all its own. It is the most familiar and most favored color in the spectrum, not surprising, as we are surrounded by the many blue hues seen in the sky and oceans.

Architectural color expert Amy Krane says that, simply put, indigo is both blue and purple."It is a deep blue tinged with purple," she says. In our interiors, it can swing either way, depending on ...

"Indigo is blue and dehydroindigo is yellow, therefore the presence of both pigments in variable proportions would justify the more or less greenish tone of Maya Blue," Doménech explained.

The blue pigment was originally made from crushed indigo plants, a common crop for plantations in the American South. The pigment was added to milk paint that in the early days was mixed in pits ...