Two of my influences are Monet and Turner.    

There are many layers, perhaps over 15,  in this painting as I wasn't content with how it looked.   I then discovered that this was something both of these artists did.  I like the build up of paint on the surface.  

The initial preparation was to collage fabric onto the canvas.  I used figured velvet and so that has been my little private joke about this piece.  It is my "black Velvet" painting.  If you zoom in you can still see remnants of the figured paisley in the painting.  I wanted that texture to be part of the story of the painting, but not the main focus.   To take out some of this texture I used acrylic mediums and fibre paste. 

The name was given to the painting by one of my Cloudseekers- those that subscribe to my newsletter.  At the time I finished the work there had been a lot of forest fires in Western Canada.  The resulting smoke in the air gave us some spectacular sunsets.  It's interesting that something so beautiful can result from something so tragic.  The name granted to this piece was based on that idea.  Once more we will rise from the ashes to continue. 

I have two sizes of prints available of this painting.  You can order them from my website www.helwigart.com

The original is also available for purchase.