Second Place!

Before you get too excited about my achieving second place with my chalk painting last Saturday in Moreno Valley, it was a very small field of competitors.  I also had a small booth at the art fair and my beloved was being the store keeper for me, while I wore off my fingerprints.  I discovered fairly early on that our choice of space to set up (chosen because putting Doug under the tree in the shade would allow me to use the umbrella to keep the blacktop I was working on from melting my fingers), was in front of the band.  The band (there were several during the course of the day) and the between-bands background music was LOUD.  So, to relieve Doug and allow him to walk around and repair his eardrums and sanity, I hurried through my work.

The need for speed was exacerbated by wind which took the umbrella for a tumble and meant I had to chalk with one hand while quickly rubbing the chalk into the now-scorching blacktop with the other.  I finished in 2 hours, and apparently was the only one who completely finished, though other chalkers, intending to take until 4pm created larger compositions.

I had a limited amount of blue, so did the surrounding ‘atmosphere’ in red, rather than follow the original, and created far less clouds than on the mixed media painting this was based on. For this it’s more about the message than the accuracy of the map.

Chalk painting

“That the world is round reminds us that we are on the same side.”

Sonnet Challenge #19

chalking on curb

Lost and found!

At the chalking festival, I had a lot of spare time on Sunday, sitting next to my creation and talking to people.  Across the street from me a couple of youngsters drew the above in the gutter and against the curb.  Inspiration indeed!

Draw your lost things.

Draw your lost things, there upon the street:

Your heart, your head, your homework, or the key.

A part of life suddenly incomplete.

Oh things! you think, oh please come back to me!

You rack your brain for where they’re left behind,

the cafe or the office or the car.

You look and look and still you cannot find

but that they’re not the same place that you are.

You turn over a glass, a wish to make,

but still your precious things eludes your grasp.

Were they stolen?  Did they evaporate?

You cannot think of who else you could ask.

Your lost things’ minds might try to draw you too,

thus wishing might just draw them back to you.

 

Indio Chalk Festival, Day 4 – the results

It didn’t rain at my house overnight on Saturday. However when I got to Indio, I found that there had been two hours of steady good rain there. Ugh. The city people had gotten there a little earlier and removed all the tarps to let the paintings dry. They needed to be dry before we could start on repair work, so we had a little time to commiserate between each other before we could start. Rafael’s painting – Lincoln, and Bijan’s painting (we think we read each others’ minds when we came up with such similar design ideas) had the most damage.

Indio Chalk Festival

Some damage to the right hand corners and both hands that required a little rework. The throat dried out fine. The wash marks on the ocean wrist I just incorporated.

Indio Chalk Festival

There were still puddles around 9:30am

Indio Chalk Festival

Lincoln needed a nose job.

Indio Chalk Festival

Bijan’s tarp leaked, causing a lot of damage on the neck and into the clouds.

Indio Chalk Festival

Repair work done, just in time for the judging. Except that about 2 minutes before Kathy came by, a woman let her 3 year old run through the painting. Then yelled at me for chiding him!

Indio Chalk Festival

The last competitor finished later in the day.

Amateur entries continued throughout the day, to the extent that there was so much judging for Kathy Dunham to do that the awards ceremony was about 40 minutes late. Here were the results in the professional category. The prizes were $2,500, $1,500 and $1,000.

1. Bijan Masoumpaneh
2. Rafael Valencia
3. Jeni Bate

Indio Chalk Festival

The artist as part of the environment. 8’x8′, chalk on blacktop. (Photoshopped to be vertical, though you can possibly now see some of the foot damage.)

 

Indio Chalk Festival, Day 3.

I awoke to a cloudy sky.  There had been a forecast of possible overnight rain, and I had put a tarp over my painting, though it was not big enough and I could only tarp about 60% of the finished part.  As I was starting to get ready to leave, it started to rain.  There wasn’t any time in which to hurry any faster.  It rained a little as I drove the 40 miles to Indio.  When I got there, Mamun (the city planner) was walking out to the parking lot.  He said to me ‘It rained hard here overnight, it’s a disaster, it’s all gone.’  $%&#$%^. Then he confessed he was joking.  $%&#$%^, Mamun!

We did have some sprinkles during the day, much of the morning I had most of my work tarped, even under the canopy.  It cleared up in the afternoon, though there is still a forecast of rain overnight.    Here’s the progress.

Indio Chalk Festival

Some clouds and a bit of space going in.

Indio Chalk Festival

All the sky is done now.

Indio Chalk Festival

Here come the clouds – in more ways than one.

Indio Chalk Festival

I’m hiding it from the rain here, some is blowing in under the canopy.

Indio Chalk Festival

Space is finished, now to add space objects.

Indio Chalk Festival

All done except for those cracks I found I can fill with chalk easily

Indio Chalk Festival

Some of the crowds, some of the clouds. It actually got a lot** busier than this, but I was busy at that time.

Indio Chalk Festival

Totally finished. “The artist as part of the environment”. 8’x8′, chalk on blacktop.

Let’s go check out some of the competition.

Indio Chalk Festival

Competitor 1

Indio Chalk Festival

Competitor 2

Indio Chalk Festival

Competitor 3

Indio Chalk Festival

Competitor 4

Indio Chalk Festival

Competitor 5

Indio Chalk Festival

Competitor 6

Indio Chalk Festival

Competitor 7

Indio Chalk Festival

Competitor 8

Judging is at noon tomorrow, but we have to be done by 10am.

 

Indio Chalk Festival, Day 2.

I’ll just post the pics to show the progress.  It’s hard to type, my fingers are so sore and rough!

Indio Chalk Festival

About 11am 350 fellow chalkers arrived from local schools. These are just a few of them.

Indio Chalk Festival

One of the city photographers was kind enough to take a pic of me working on my phone.

Indio Chalk Festival

The trees/fingers and veins/rivers are now complete.

Indio Chalk Festival

Underpainting for the ocean.

Indio Chalk Festival

Ocean/hand complete with waves rushing to shore/shoulder. I used one crack in the blacktop as the area behind a wave in order to minimize the impact. Couldn’t think of how to do anything with the others.

Indio Chalk Festival

I started adding the hair/sky/space at the bottom, but then clouds came and I decided to take advantage and work on the top of the painting, as I can’t shade that part with the canopy.

Indio Chalk Festival

Yellow on top, black/blue under and sore underneath that.

Indio Chalk Festival

An inspector came by.

Indio Chalk Festival

I decided to end the day by blocking in the transitions of the sunrise part of the hair as a guide for tomorrow.

Indio Chalk festival, Day 1.

I spent much of the day folded up on Miles Ave in Indio, wearing out my fingerprints, making my knees and hips sore, and straining my back.  This is for a big competition.  Well, big for me, anyway.  I’ll let the pictures paint the thousand words as my fingers are sore from rubbing chalk into the blacktop.

Chalk festival entry progress

Chalk festival entry progress

Here we go!

Chalk festival entry progress

Laying the grid to guide my outline

Chalk festival entry progress

The outline

Chalk festival entry progress

This is what it’s called

Chalk festival entry progress

I look like Darth Vader at this point

Chalk festival entry progress

Progress on the face

Chalk festival entry progress

Face and neck mostly done

Chalk festival entry progress

More corrections on the face. Being faceblind isn’t easy – I think** it kinda** looks like me, but I’m not sure.

Chalk festival entry progress

The waterfall on the left of the face, and the sky in between

Chalk festival entry progress

The field is in. I’m not entirely happy with this part and might rework it later.

Chalk festival entry progress

Blocking in the left hand. OK, I’m done for the day.

Painful knees, no fingerprints.

Today I spent seven hours slaving away over a hard concrete slab.  Yes, the annual Indio Chalk Festival.  This year the festival was moved from outside the city hall to Miles Avenue a block away, and the street was blocked off.  I knew that I was being asked to do a much larger painting this year, and had in mind that I might do a triptych, though I had no clue what exactly I was going to do.  However, instead of being assigned a space, I was asked to pick one.  I had the choice of concrete or blacktop, and opted for a familiar surface, mostly in the shade.  The area I chose had four perfect squares with spaces in between, so I decided to use them all.  I wasn’t sure whether to do four seasons (like Vivaldi’s Window) or 4 times of day, like the painting I’m working on for my timelapse video (hopefully done in time for May’s newsletter) – so I did both.

And yes, tomorrow will be the best day of the year to commit a crime – I have no fingerprints – wore them off rubbing the chalk into the concrete.   Oh wait, I have a show in Indian Wells this weekend, and I ache everywhere, especially my knees.

Indio Chalk Festival painting

The Plan

Indio Chalk Festival painting

Winter Night

Indio Chalk Festival painting

Spring Morning

Indio Chalk Festival painting

Summer afternoon

Indio Chalk Festival painting

Fall Evening

Indio Chalk Festival painting

All four