Bucket List #3 - Don't Forget to Scoot

Don't Forget to Scoot   oil on canvas   48 x 24 x 1.5

Our grandkids are city-dwellers.  And, as such, they spend lots of time on the urban playground.  These kids are amazing!  Their playground skills know no bounds.

I have always wondered why I don't have a yearning for travel.  Quite perplexing, given my degree in French and my love for all things global.  You see, completely at odds!  While other folks my age are planning trips, and snapping multitudinous shots of foreign landmarks, I am quite content to be at my easel, which, for me, is the ultimate getaway!

And, so my bucket list series continues....and it is comprised of activities and movement.  Those are the things that give me thrills and chills.  Those are the things I don't want to miss.

Mystery solved.  

Bucket List #2 - Don't Forget to Climb

Don't Forget to Climb   oil/canvas   48 x 36 x 1.5

My husband and I were blessed with three extremely active sons.  And now, two grandchildren who simply cannot sit still.  As I sit back (yeah!) and watch their antics, I am renewed by their adventuresome spirits and their delight in moving... pushing their efforts beyond what is doable, to what is possible.  Here, here!  We all have our bucket lists.  My own involves painting...in pushing myself by daily risk-taking.  I believe that we aren't really learning unless we are trying something new.  Note to self: allow my brush to skip, jump, skate and climb.  Explore the road less traveled.

At the end of the day, there is always the easy chair.

Bucket List

Don't Forget to Swing   oil/canvas   48 x 36

I am not a good tourist.  Wandering through crowds and snapping photos is painful.  Painting to me is the ultimate pleasurable activity.  And so, my personal bucket list has PAINTING on the top.  After that...many activities that reflect my desire for simple activities that flood my senses with excitement.

"Don't forget to Swing" is the first of a planned series of bucket list adventures.  My goals in this painting were many....the frozen stop moment of a swinging tire....the laxness of the chains, the wind created by the back and forth movement.  The most difficult passages involved the lessening of power of that big black tire which could easily overpower my small subject.  Every shape creates a counter-shape and these are difficult to manage.

I might be done.