Paintings Done!

(Nope, no baby yet, thanks for asking. I'm starting to get an increased number of phone calls and emails "just checking in". Truthfully I don't mind the check-ins, it makes me feel loved. I just have nothing to report except "nope, no baby yet." I had a doctor appointment today, and she pretty much told me "nothing seems to be imminent, but you never know when that could change." Words to live by.)

I finished my paintings today, yay! Now I truly do feel prepared for Isaac to come (though again, I'd prefer to wait another couple days so the antibiotics can continue their magic bullet work and I have a good chance of being able to actually use that yogic breath I've been practicing). I truly enjoyed doing each painting--each used different techniques or had different "painterly" issues that I had to work out, which was fun--and I'm also glad to have that last big project accomplished. I think I'll really appreciate having these paintings with me at the hospital.

Just in case anyone actually cares (and even if you don't, I want to write this down for posterity), here's a description of the series (yes, I *could* take pictures and then upload them, but that would be a whole 'nother project, and I'm done with project mode right now), which I'm somewhat pompously calling "The Driste Series: For Birth":

There are 4 paintings, each on an 11"x17" canvas (which is smaller than I prefer to work, but I wanted these to be portable). Each canvas is filled with one of my abstract woman forms, and each woman form has a rectangular "window" in the chest region of approximately the same size (about 10 cm wide, not coincidentally).

Painting 1: the background is deep magenta, and the woman form is done in red, pink and gold. The window has a little abstract sketch in crimson of a woman doing "Warrior 2" pose in the middle, with the word "STRENGTH" above and the word "POWER" below her. The background of the window is gold and the whole window has a pink glaze on it which make both the little woman and the words kind of watery.

Painting 2: the background is dark pthalo blue, and the woman form is done in lighter pthalo blue, turquoise and white. The window has a bright yellow background and the word "BREATHE" in the middle in purple, with a purple curved arrow above it and a purple curved arrow below it forming a circle around the whole word. Above the top arrow is the word "IN" in purple, and below the bottom arrow is the word "OUT" in purple. Then the whole window is glazed with a light blue glaze, which gives the whole thing a sort of greenish glow.

Painting 3: the background is lavender, and the woman form is done in deep purple, lavender and white. The window has a bright orange background, and the top 2/3rds of the window is taken up by a dark crimson, red and orange circle (which happens to be exactly 10cm in diameter). The bottom 1/3 has the word "OPEN" in bright yellow letters.

Painting 4: the background is medium pthalo green, and the woman form is done in darker tones of the same green, so the whole form seems to just barely emerge from the background. The window looks like a spring scene, with sky blue on the top 2/3rds and bright grass green on the bottom 1/3, and the word "YES" in dark brown in the middle. The branches of the "Y" in "YES" have pink fluff around them (so the effect is one of an abstract cherry plum tree). The word "YOU" floats in the sky in darker blue, and the word "CAN" floats at the bottom of the window in darker green.

At some point I'll probably give each one of these paintings an official name, but for now, I'm done. Go me!