Waldo Canyon Wildfire (Acrylic Watermedia)

This is the final version of my painting of the 2012 Waldo Canyon Wildfire, near Colorado Springs.  On January 2, I thought this painting was finished.  I signed it, labeled it, and attached a wire to the back for hanging.  But on January 3, the day it was due to be delivered to Boston, I woke up thinking that I should add more gray, because all that smoke in the sky would have muted some of the colors.  As usual, I was afraid of ruining my work at the last minute (the Mr. Bean syndrome), and even though time was short, I decided to try.  I mixed up a gray (with cadmium red, pthalo green, and a little purple, and white, colors already in the painting) and applied it sparingly to some of the clouds, using rounded strokes to resemble like billowing smoke. I also used the gray as a wash over the hills in the foreground.  While I was at it, I use some white to extended some of the lines in the sky.  I was happy with the changes and I do think they improved the painting. This is acrylic paint, so it dried quickly, and we delivered the painting as scheduled to Galatea Fine Arts, where it is part of the special "Heroes and Villains" show.  (In this case,  the heroes are the firefighters who extinguished the fire and the villains are the people whose actions started it.)  That was Sunday. After the day we had today (Wednesday, January 6, 2021), the day that the doors of the capitol were breached, what I want to say is that small actions matter.  In art, it matters to take the extra step to improve your work if you can.  And in life, small actions matter, too.  You can start a fire, or you can prevent it.  You can cause a problem, or you can solve it.  You can stand for freedom and democracy, or you can tear it down.  Your actions matter, however small they might seem.