I’ve always been fascinated by interesting atmospheric phenomenas and ‘glory’ is one of them. You often see them from an aircraft window if the sun is on the other side of the fuselage that you’re sitting in; you see the shadow of the aircraft perhaps on some clouds with a rainbow surrounding the shadow. A very beautiful sight. Anyway, while thinking about ‘what to paint next' that involves ‘looking down at the shuttle’ view, I was delighted to come across a video that, too briefly, showed a glory atop of the shadow of the shuttle’s plume. I was inspired to do this painting of the last shuttle mission (Atlantis STS-135), bringing the shuttle programme to a close. It is fitting that the glory (ie rainbow) is ‘above' the shuttle’s head. I placed the glory more or less at the centre to show the importance of it to me as an artist and how the whole composition comes together portraying a profound feeling that I get, which is so hard to put into words. A sort of visual music to commemorate the shuttle programme.