Red Rock Canyon, Ok.k

Oil on panel
I was painting in the canyon and the wind was really bad. I had 2 folding chair plus a bag of gear sitting on part of my easel and still had to hold on to it. It took me close to 2 hours to finally decide that I was finished. At that time my husband came up to me and "Are you done? We have to go." I noticed some urgency in his voice when I noticed he wasn't looking at me. He was looking behind me and up. I saw thick smoke billowing up beyond the canyon wall. There were grass fires and we weren't sure where. We packed up with the air getting smokier, eyes were starting to burn and throats starting to feel scratchy. We did get out of that area, but if in the distance we could see where the fire was getting close to this town and people were evacuating out of their homes. That was something else.