Utah Foster Care Annual Chalk Art Festival

My high school used to host chalk art competitions every year, which I never did very well in until senior year, when me and my partner Lin Zhang won first. It was the first time I'd ever won anything for drawing, and it kind of took me off guard (In a pleasant way of course) After that festival I heard of the Foster Care one, then in either is first or second year. My mom and I have made a tradition of participating in it since '05 and it's steadily grown in popularity. This year there were twice as many artists than our first! We've done both reproductions and original art, and this year we decided to do 'Reverie' by Alhphonse Mucha.

The competition allows twenty four hours to finish, then judging takes place. We got there at about five or six on friday night right after I got off work and put in about three hours, then came back saturday morning and went until four. Since the image was so complex, we started in the middle and worked out.

Working in the middle of the road gives you 'Zoo Syndrome.' I think we partially go just to laugh at what people will say right next to you and think you're not listening. The usual comments are along the lines of 'Don't step on that honey!' 'hey look, they're drawing a lady.' or, 'don't they know that cars ae going to drive all over that?'

My favorite comment this year though was this guy, who, my mom was smart enough to sneak a picture of. He walked up, squatted down (which was rare) and sarted talking to us. He had a thick accent from somewhere back east (I'd say New York, but what do I know) mixed with spanish or portuguese 'Hey man, nice drawing! Except, look, her lips are all like, you know' he makes a kissy face like someone spoiled and then says, 'it makes her look like a Utahn.' I didn't laugh right then, but as soon as he was a block or so down the street my mom and I couldn't help it and just started lauging. I hope all Utahn's lips don't look like that, or I'm in trouble.

Progress on Saurday morning. The weather was in the high 90's, but we've had worse. Hot is okay. Wind is dismal. Thankfully no wind this year, just sunburns. We use rubber gloves to grind the chalk into the pavement, it takes three or four layers rubbed into get an even coat, then you can start blending colors together. Each artist is given a box of Koss pastels to work with, as much water as they can drink, a t-shirt, and lunch. There's also a fountain, which our square was right next to this year, so when we got hot we could go run through it. (We were both hideously dirty anyway, and after a while you stop caring what you look like.)

This shot shows the color we had best, unfortunately when we took pictures of the finished one with our camera it was so bright they all turned out blown out, so we waited for shade.

Finished!