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.

Constant Change...

Slice   watercolor on paper   2.5 x 7.5

is difficult for painters to capture.  We deal with a frozen moment situation.  Claude Monet solved his curiosity with haystacks by painting an entire series.  Contemporary kinetic sculptors such as Janet Echelman and Anne Lilly create works whose movement IS the art.  Gazing at the face of a loved one provides multitudinous "looks" in the course of a day.  Which one to choose for the frozen moment?  Likewise with the ocean.  Colors, texture and direction change many times during the course of the day.  During our shore vacation, I painted only 2 very small watercolors of the ocean.  There could have been dozens.  Yet each one allows me to feel the infinite.