Wild at Heart Illustration: March 2015

I know, I know, this post is LONG OVERDUE. I moved from the apartment into our first house a week or so after the Sweet Chalk Festival and lost my Nikon cord to load pictures. I just now found it.

This past August I was invited back to be part of the Sweet Chalk Festival (2014). I absolutely loved participating in it the year before so I was excited to do it again. This year I wanted to draw a beloved hero that is an animal. I absolutely love Harry Potter, my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Kelly, read us The Sorcerer's Stone. I would hang on every word and loved the characters. I have read all of the books, reread them, and went to the movies with my family. I have a very special place in my heart for a certain snow owl and she was a hero in her own right. Hedwig was going to be my piece of chalk art.

I did some simple sketches first. Then once I narrowed down the composition I moved to sketching it on a giant grid of papers taped together.

I chose to do a 4x6 foot piece, next year I will do a bigger piece. I did this same method the year before with the Lockport Lion. I used tracing paper once that sketch was complete to lay down on the asphalt. The drawing is transferred when I cut long the lines on the tracing paper and use basic white chalk to draw along the cut edges.

The weather forecast was not in our favor for this event.

My easy drawing transfer process was not easy this time. Usually the process takes about an hour, this time the wind had other plans. The tracing paper would lift and the tape and heavy objects holding down didn't seem to do me any good. Eventually an angel named Jill jumped in to help me break the paper into smaller sections so the wind couldn't grab it and have its way with my sanity. When the piece was finally transferred I went to work on getting the base colors down.

The weather changed from windy to raining. We scrambled to get tarps down. The flimsy painting plastic I had was not going to cut it so I drove over to Home Depot to get a blue tarp to better protect what I started. The feeling of camaraderie was awesome, we all worked as a team. The volunteers and artists all helped each other out, even some onlookers joined in.

The next morning we started to uncover our works and unfortunately, Joe's piece was vandalized when we were gone the night before. He had to start over. Mine only got some water damage. I did need to redo the diamonds of the glass windows and reinforce the edges.

People recognized this beautiful bird and the kids loved her!!! I had great conversations with young artists and took a moment to capture what I found throughout the day, here are a few:

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I can't express enough how awesome my coartists were with their talents and with their personalities! Everyone is warm and helpful and I am going to share them here:

The fan favorite Joe Mahley.

http://www.eastniagarapost.com/search/label/Sweet%20Chalk%20Festival

Deb and I, a friend and old coworker, who joined in this chalk event for the first time this year!

She will be back for more.

I learned a few things things from other artists and will be investing in harder chalks. The asphalt tends to wear chalk down fast and the pigment doesn't stay on as easy. White chalk was incredibly frustrating to use. So next year you are not going to see a white animal. Now the finished piece:

Ellen (The Mastermind of Sweet events in Lockport) and I with Hedwig

A little boy who looked a lot like Harry Potter himself said it was his favorite. My heart could have just exploded right then and there. I'm so happy that I make people smile the way he did with what I can do.

A tradition now is to celebrate with Lake Effect Ice Cream! Friends and family came out to see the festival and stuck around for the end. My husband, Tim, and my fur baby, Ruby, loved a day in Lockport. I look forward to more Sweet Sweet Summers.