I didn’t realize how much Walt Disney World had settled into my heart until I started painting it. My love for EPCOT snuck up on me, those breathtaking views when you first arrive to the park, the way it transports you around the world, and how it grabs a hold of your heart; my art is how I keep it alive.

To start the work on Spaceship Earth, I perched near the Legacy stones by the entrance, with my tablet propped on my bag and that glorious sphere gleaming ahead. The intricacies of the geodesic shape were a challenge as well as a source of great artistic satisfaction. Those tiled triangles are like a puzzle I just have to solve. Back home, I refined those into a detailed small-scale test, painting in the gray shadows to test the balance of those facets.

Our family has wandered Epcot more times than we can tally. Of course, the early part of the year, during the Festival of the Arts, is my favorite time (all the colors, the chalk dust, the way it turns the park into a living canvas). Last trip, we stayed late, until the park emptied out, and I sketched Spaceship Earth’s silhouette by the flicker of the LED panels. Then when the bustle was gone we just lingered as long as we could (until the cast members lovingly nudging us toward the exit). Where there had been only shouts and laughter, now the entrance loop music floated clear and crisp, those soft synths wrapping around Spaceship Earth’s glow. If you’ve ever lingered past closing, you understand, that magical change when the park feels like it’s just yours, the music carrying you out. That hollow ache settled in as we boarded the monorail, watching the colors of the park slip behind the palms.

That feeling is what I poured into my monochromatic Spaceship Earth painting. In the studio, I took those park sketches and built the high-resolution final digital painting, broad sweeps of gray for its hulking base, sharp flicks of black and white for the facets, every triangle crisp and deliberate. Dame Judi Dench’s voice still echoes in my head from the ride, tying it all together. I finished the painting at my desk, surrounded by park maps and grainy photos from the ride exit. It’s for us EPCOT lifers, the ones who’d frame that sphere and hang it where it whispers memories.