Gaia is the mythical Greek goddess of the earth. The background colors are earthy and hot yellows and oranges because to me they are more representative of most of the earth than the usual collection of green colors that this mythical goddess is presented by other oil paintings. Most other paintings and illustrations are of her doing her godly duty, usually tending plants, etc. I decided to do a simple portrait of her with that all beguiling and knowing expression of confidence only a goddess possesses. As stated in the Hemera painting text, I never do a painting with a preconceived conclusion about what the finished painting will look like. I prefer to make decisions while in process, or what I call having a "conversation" with the painting. However, there were two baseline thoughts I wanted to represent. I did want the illusion that the painting is looking back at the viewer regardless of where the viewer was standing or sitting so I used the old masters technique to achieve this. I also wanted the background to kind of represent the element that the goddess controlled. This was done with a loose color no shape approach. There are four paintings in this collection to represent earth, air, fire and water. Gaia is the goddess of the earth. She is also the oldest elemental mythical Greek goddess of the earth, air, fire and water.