The opera Dreaming Blue began with the words and images of a group of students from Mountain View Elementary School. The children were asked to imagine being their favorite color, and it was out of their writings and drawings that the characters of the opera emerged. The students' work was full of images of beauty, clear emotion, and the simplicity of truth.

The characters that became the Voice of Child, Baby Blue, Azul, and Blue Weirdo virtually leaped off the pages of these drawings and writings and into the libretto, where they seemed to write the script themselves. Each character took on a specific personality that ultimately directed where the story was going to lead.