Yesterday I had the great fortune to help the city of Decatur with their new Sidewalk Saturday's program. Their were giant puppets, musicians, and drummers scattered around town... and me.
I was hired as a sidewalk chalk artist. I've seen incredibly impressive examples of sidewalk art (they're always floating around on the web), and being the ham that I am, I always thought it would be fun to try it. So, I bought a bunch of pastels, geared up and went to work.
I drew crowns and cat ears for the kids to lie down in and have their picture taken - those were a hit! And then I began a more formal piece.
Then the children came.
"Can I help?"
"Sure, color in that spot over there. Blend there. Use this color for the legs."
I suddenly became the pied piper of street art - how awesome! The crowd of kids anxious to draw grew and I punted. I drew the outline of a big whale, gave them all blue pastels and said, "Go to town!" The mustache was a little girl's idea. We tend to put mustaches on everything here in Decatur, and she filled the job beautifully! When he was finished, the kids posed at the top of the water spout and their parents took pictures. (You can see the cat ears in the upper left in this photo.)
They were fast, so I then had a budding young artist help me draw a rocket.
That same budding young artist then branched out on his own. This became the alien space monkey:
Then there was the swamp monster:
Even some adults got into it - down on the ground. There was a submarine, a Mondrian, a Georgia O'Keefe, flowers, leaves, unidentifiable scribbles. We all got completely filthy! Supposedly one couple went and bought their child a new outfit (and borrowed the store's bathroom). People tried to give me money. (Hubbie was there handing out my bookmarks and stickers, and politely turned away the offers of cash - we were being paid by the city.) Kids were covered in COLOR!!!! And King of Pops was right there with ice-cream for breaks. Gads, we had a good time!
Okay, so I can't walk today. Despite all my exercising, these were muscles I don't often use, and I seldom lean on pavement for several hours. Oh, I hurt. But it was worth it.
The city's photographer was there and I hope he shares photos of the gaggle of kids - I'll share the links with you as they come in. And if you were one of the parents and want to share - please email me at elizabeth at dulemba dot com. I'll post your pics here.
What a great, great event. And we get to do it all over again in two weeks on April 20th. If you live in the area, I suggest you don't miss out. Put on some grubbies and come on down!
looks like so much fun!
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