The images of the Challenger explosion are very interesting to me.

Since I’m not interested in photo-realism, I just wanted to capture the main ideas/parts of those pictures: a peaceful, deep, blue background, an explosion of color and movement near the center, and white smoke trails coming into and out of the field of view.  I used several different colors in the center to try to give it some depth and intrigue, letting the different layers only partially dry before adding the next in order to get a lot of uneven mixing.

Death of a School Teacher, 2012, 31 x 48 inches, acrylic and water on canvas