Chalk Festival, Ingenuity & More Mystery Sculpting

More non-wargaming or miniature painting stuff... (but don't worry, more of that soon!)

Last year I posted about the Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival, along with some pics of past chalk drawings. This year I ran down for a quick afternoon of drawing. My fiance (wife in a couple weeks!) was sick and had to bow out. I feel bad, as she's the one who got me into the festival in the first place and I know how much she enjoys it.

This year I sort of got stuck with a small space to work in. So it was about 1/2 the size as usual, and I finished in a very short time, had to sacrifice some of what I had planned & some of the detail. A bit disappointing, but trying not to let it bug me.



I stuck with the same cartoony theme I've done since the first time. I've got to admit, I like it when the kids recognize the rabbit & snail from the previous years. :)


While on the topic of festivals & public artsy stuff, I will be part of the Line of Sight
"mural" project at the Cleveland Ingenuity Festival this year. I (and a number of other artists) will be painting a "mural" on a big 8'x4' board throughout the festival. It's a really cool festival, and this year it has moved to the location of last year's Bridge Festival, on the lower level of the Detroit-Superior bridge, in Cleveland. A great site!


Came home and after some other things and a nap, I've been working on the "mystery sculpt" again. Here's part of it (1 of 2 pieces.)



The other part is curing under a lamp (I hope), as I want to work on it more before going to bed.

Chalk Festival

A couple of blogs I follow have occasionally offered a glimpse into some of the other creative pursuits of their authors. This will be my first along those lines.

This weekend is the 20th annual Cleveland Museum of Art Chalk Festival. It's something my fiancé introduced me to two years ago. I enjoyed the first festival so much, I anxiously look forward to it each year since. This will only be my third.


Chalk Festival 2007

This was my first Chalk Festival. It's held in front of the Cleveland Museum of Art. They usually have a stage with live music and a refreshment station. We got up bright and early to find a prime location Saturday morning. The weather was absolutely beautiful.



Following my fiancé's advice, I made no plans for what to do. I just showed up and started chalking. I've got a fascination with Rabbit legends/myths, which grew out of a related fascination with Moon legends/myths. To tell the truth, I'm not sure where the snail came from. I have some ideas, but enough with the rambling...



My fiancé had a spot almost next to mine. The little spiral towards the bottom of the photo was her proof to me that one could draw a stick-figure snail. A couple of (inconsiderate) onlookers walked right across both of our drawings, so I put the arrows between them in frustration.




Here's my more-or-less finished product. I couldn't figure out what to do about the snail eyes, so left them off. The spirals aren't normally my sort of thing, but I felt like I needed to do something with all that blank background.





Chalk Festival 2008

Second year for me, and another beautiful day!


I don't have any in-progress pics handy, but I'm apparently on the brochure (see the link above) for this year. :D


My fiancé's final drawing, inspired by a creepy dream she had recently had.



And my second year Rabbit & Snail. I was flattered that a couple people came by and asked me about the previous year's drawing. Again I had the boring background, but got to have fun playing with the gradation of the color. At least this snail had eyes.


When I was in (architecture) school I developed a (very) bad habit of biting my lip when really focusing on some manual activity. I only rarely do this with painting miniatures, but here's the giant blood blister thing I gave myself while drawing last year. A bit hard to see, but it was really huge and disgusting.




Chalk Festival 2009


This year looks like the weather will be good once again. Our schedule is a bit tight, so we probably won't be able to go Saturday, as we usually do, and will have to wait til Sunday. I may be have a bit of time to go by myself first thing Saturday for a quick "chalk fix" (like an addict), but I'm not certain how polite that is.

I've tried to avoid thinking about what I will draw again, but I've had a few ideas floating around. We'll see how things go.