Danielle | Collective Elements

One of the bonuses of being a parent is that I get to re-experience some of the joys of childhood. I know many of us can remember playing hopscotch in front of our apartment buildings or houses. The setup was almost as important as the actual game. If you weren't lucky enough to have an actual stick of chalk, you'd look for that perfect rock or piece of concrete for drawing your beautiful hopscotch grid. A clean flat stretch of sidewalk would do but it was better when you could draw on that sweet black pavement of the street or a driveway.

As the only girl in my generation in my family, it wasn't often I could get my brother or cousins to play hopscotch with me. It was more likely I would play skully or one of a million games of freeze tag, hide 'n' seek, or hot peas and butter with them. So I spent most of my moments with that hopscotch piece of chalk drawing masterpieces on black pavement. It was WAY better than drawing on my small chalkboard at home. Outside, my pictures could stretch forever and be admired by anyone who happened to walk by.

Now I share that with my little artist daughter every summer. We take our bucket of sidewalk chalk and draw hearts and flowers in front of our house. Sometimes my nephews (even the 12 year old one) will join us as we do out part to beautify the world.

More art in the city:

Evaporation T-shirt by Ikyoto