Today I was watching my son play. He is a font of boundless energy and can amuse himself for hours fighting imaginary “bad guys.” He is in a constant flow of motion-a few steps, a flourish of arm movements, sound effects accompanying the bursts of energy from his fingertips, then a spin and a jump to a new spot and the pattern repeats.

I thought it would be fun to try and capture some of this activity in a painting, and so as he played I painted. I initially sketched some of his gestures quickly before he’d move on to the next, then I used the orange ink brush pen to outline around the figures adding extra limbs to convey the movement. Then I added the color around the figures each with a different feel of energy as he moved around the room into different zones of his imagination. I like how it turned out and I’ll keep it as a reminder of how much energy and fun he had at this age.

In what ways have you used art to capture the feelings of an ordinary event in your life that will one day be a distant memory?