All In A Day's Work

Check out this cool video. Click the link to a YouTube video showing the whole first day of the event (Avenida de Colores in Sarasota, Florida, 2009), taken from a second story window overlooking the street. I'm in the upper left hand corner of the video.

It gives an interesting view of how long it takes to produce one of these works. And this is just Saturday, from about 9am to 9pm. We then worked most of the day, til 3pm on Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EbooRDIxWk

Carmen wins First Place!

Carmen's winning artwork. She won first place in the Student Division at the Avenida de Colores Street Painting Festival in Sarasota, Florida. She even beat a team of 4 girls from Dreyfoos High School of the Arts. Pretty impressive for a 14 year old in eighth grade!

Carmen got started about 7:30 am on Saturday. She used a paper template for the 4 foot x 6 foot area on the sidewalk. Luckily, she was in the shade most of the afternoon.

We aren't sure who the original artist of the piece was, but we think it was by Sophie Anderson. Here Carmen, finally finished around 1pm on Sunday, sits back and talks with another artist. Carmen was definitely one of the crowd favorites, and gathered one of the largest amounts of cash in her People's Choice donation box.

Jennifer Recreates "The Flapper" at Avenida de Colores 2009

We travelled to Sarasota, Florida this past weekend to participate in the Second Annual Avenida de Colores Street Painting Festival. Lori Escalara, the featured artist from San Diego, is on the right, and my picture is on the left.

I decided to do a Life magazine cover from the 1920's titled "The Flapper" by Leyendecker. We started early, about 7:30am.

The weather was great (no rain!) but extremely hot. Thank goodness we were allowed to bring umbrellas. But it was a constant battle to keep the umbrellas upright, because of the wind. And the asphalt was unbelievably hot in the middle of the day.

My sponsor was Melissa Clark Designs, who has a web design business in Boston, but was down visiting for the festival.

This was the largest piece I've attemped on my own. It was 10 feet across by 12 feet high. I finished most of it after 12 hours of work on Saturday. Sunday I finished the word Life at the top and filled in the white background. I also did a bit of touch up on the hands and feet. I finished about noon on Sunday. To see a good overview of the event, check out this You Tube video done by Sarasota Alive!: http://www.sarasotahistoryalive.com/index.php?cid=147585&src=directory&view=video&srctype=detail&refno=748&category=This%2520Week&curlid=305

Bloom N Garden N Chalk Fest

Jennifer & Carmen participated in the first Bloom N Garden N Chalk Fest in Safety Harbor, Florida over the weekend of March 28th and 29th. We got started around 8am, and put down a layer of white tempera paint on the sidewalk. It was the first time we officially had to work on the sidewalk. We had two spots next to each other in front of the local art gallery shop.


Saturday was pretty warm and very windy. We each had a 4.5' x 8' space. Carmen did a reproduction of a Bougereau and I did a piece by Jim Warren titled "Awkward Age".

Sunday morning we got heavy showers. We all covered our pieces with plastic and duct tape fairly well. We decided to uncover them to let them start drying out around 8am, but then another bunch of showers came and washed some of us out.

We just had time to lay a new piece of plastic over Carmen's piece, but mine was sacrificed. Around 11am, we saw blue skies and decided to see how quickly we could recover. They moved the judging back an hour to 3pm, so we all hunkered down and got to work.

2009 Lake Worth Street Painting Festival

Jennifer & Carmen get started. This year, our template was too small, so we used a grid method to map out the painting. We did "The Nut Gatherers" by Bouguereau. We started actually "painting" around 10am on Saturday. We usually start with the faces first and then work outward.

Carmen works on the folds of the dress, while lots & lots of people strolled by. The weather was the best we've had in a long time - cool, a little breeze, and NO RAIN!

Done! We finished around 3pm on Sunday.

2008 Lake Worth Street Painting Festival

Jennifer & Carmen participated in the 2008 Lake Worth Street Painting Festival in February.

Here, Jennifer gets started by using a template to transfer the pattern to the street.
Carmen works on the blue sky and puffy white clouds. The art is titled "On the Heights" and covered a 10' x 10' area.

Finished, right before the rain started.

Naples Street Painting

Original art by Robert Bateman (color is not exactly right)

White paint has been applied, and the stencil was transferred.
Painting was done at the opening of a new housing development with an art theme in May 2007. It was very hot, from the first thing in the morning. We had two days, Saturday and Sunday, to work on the paintings. On the second day, we finally got some coverage and relief from the sun, when they brought out some tents.

Detail of the bird.

Finished painting of flowers and bird.

Jennifer, Mercedes & Carmen with finished work.

Where Do I Start?

The first part of doing a street painting, is deciding on what you will be painting. Not all art will reproduce well. Choosing wisely can make the difference between a messy, unrecognizable work, or a striking masterpiece.

This picture is a scan from a book of the original painting by Thomas Lawrence, entitled "The Calmady Children". We found it in a children's art book. The main reasons we chose this work were the very engaging faces of the two girls, the beautiful tones on the skin and hair, and the dramatic use of light and dark. We knew this would work well when done large on the ground with soft pastels.

Other styles that work well are masterworks from the medieval times, impressionistic paintings, and most realistic works. Of course you can always use an original piece of art for your inspiration. Using a popular painting that is well known is always safe, and will be a crowd pleaser. Remember your audience, and that this is primarily a piece of performance art.

Lake Worth Street Painting Festival

Jennifer, Mercedes & Carmen Chaparro with their finished street painting on Lucerne Avenue at the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival, Florida, in February 2007.

The street art, done completely in pastel chalks, is a reproduction of a painting called "The Calmady Children" by Thomas Lawrence .

We started by making a large paper template for the 10' x 10' area. We poked holes in the paper, and laid it down over the roadway, and transfered chalk dust to the surface. We then started applying the chalk around 9:30 am on Saturday and worked until about 4pm. Luckily we didn't have any rain that night, and began again at 9am on Sunday morning. We finished about 2pm on Sunday.