September 4, 2010
Sacramento’s “Chalk it up” festival is a non-profit organization created to support art education programs. Their website is www.chalkitup.org
This is their twentieth year. Labor Day Weekend (September 4-6), two hundred artists came out and drew on five-by-five-foot sidewalk squares. There was live music, food, vendors, and children’s activities.
I was invited to participate this year. I decided to draw my Jack Kirby-style “Spluhh monster.” A lot of artists take the three-day weekend to create their masterpieces. Registration was at 7am. I hoped to get there by 8am, and finish in time for a late lunch that first day. I suspected I would work faster than a lot of artists.
Here is the square I chose for myself. Number 25.
My wife popped over with my boys at around 9am, after I’d had a chance to write “SPLUHH” and roughly sketch out SPLUHH’S shape. It was an interesting exercise trying to fit the work into a square rather than rectagonal composition.
I shamelessly brought a pile of shwag to sell to passersby. I think I was the only one.
Since they were there, I let the boys help with the piece, and add some lines to the work. Boris did it first. He grabbed a piece of chalk and started “chalking.” I tried to capture the act on film, but by the time I had the camera up, he was on to other things and didn’t care to participate again. Oscar worked at the piece for a little while, though.
TUNE IN NEXT MONDAY, fans! Chris will walk us through a “BEFORE AND AFTER” process, start to finish, of creating his FULL-COLOR five-foot-square “SPLUHH” monster! See you then! – Rob Oder, Editor-in-Chief!