Two (Very) Different Chalk Festivals

We went to the Howard Street Chalk Festival again this year. This festival features four of the type of 3D Chalk art that only work if you look at it through a phone camera. Here’s one that looks like it could be a trompe l’oile piece.

But here’s what it looks like from the side without the camera.

This one was really fun.

The mermaid was a bit less successful.

The pinata looked like it was jumping. The shadows under its feet are chalk. The other shadows are actual people shadows.

There were some 2D pieces by guest artists, too, as well as ones done by people who had purchased squares, but I didn’t take any pictures of them.

A few weeks later. we went to another chalk festival the I Madonnari Street Painting Festival at the Sutherland Elementary School. It is modeled after a festival of the same name which has been hosted by the Children’s Creative Project in Santa Barbara County, California since 1987. Madonnari Street painting is an Italian tradition believed to have started in the 16th century; the word “Madonnari” is used because Italian street painters would often reproduce the image of the Madonna, St. Mary.

The festival features the work of professional artists as well as the creations of students and amateur artists who are invited to purchase a sidewalk square and decorate it with pastel chalks. Proceeds benefit the Sutherland Parent Teacher Association (PTA).

This year, Liz, who I work with at the Chicago Children’s Museum, was one of the guest artists.

Some of the other guest artists were still hard at work.

When we first got there, this one featured a large mushroom but then a little bunny started appearing and we realized it was the cover of the Richard Scarry book “I am a Bunny”.

The school takes up one large block, and people were drawing on the sidewalk around the whole building – there were so many wonderful drawings!

They get sprayed with floor wax when they are done, which must preserve them for a long time because on the few squares that were not being done this year, we could see some ghost images.