What's fun about being an Artist?

 

Plein air painting on the sidewalk!

Happy Spring!

 Jaime Howard

SCAD Sidewalk Arts 2012 

News bulletin: Saturday, April 28, 2012

It's Spring, so it's time for the annual Savannah College of Art and Design Sidewalk Arts Festival, part of Alumni Weekend here in the charming city of Savannah, Georgia.

Later today I’ll be competing against hundreds of sidewalk chalk artists. Forsyth Park will be jammed with thousands of onlookers young and old, kids and dogs, watching as SCAD students and alumni squat on the cement and attempt to create something memorable with the most fragile and temporary of mediums – chalk.

SCAD Sidewalk Arts Festival 2011

My piece of the sidewalk

The first year I entered the contest it rained. Guess what happens to chalk when it gets rained on? You guessed it – about 75% of the drawings were washed into the storm drains, mine included.

Last year rain wasn’t predicted. The weather was perfect and we picked a spot in the shade. After 3 hours of squatting on the sidewalk in a rainbow of chalk dust, fish were swimming on the sidewalk, my clothes were as colorful as my drawing and my hands were sore from blending colors into the rough cement. 

It was a day pretty close to perfection. As an added bonus, my drawing took 2nd place in the Alumni division complete with a generous cash prize.

News update: Sunday April 29, 2012: 

Today was another perfect day in the park with fellow artists and hordes of art lovers as well. My image was strategically selected to portray a happy day in Spring and my helper, Bonnie and I had a ball trying to perfect it.

Grating the chalk to make paint

Painting is so much easier

Remembering the experience of rubbing the skin off my palms last year, I decided to make paint. A kitchen grater, a stick of chalk and some water are all it takes to make chalk paint. With a house painting brush as the applicator, my palms were saved. 

We had a blast - there's something about the combination of being outside, working as fast as I can with a group of friendly and like-minded people that makes me happy. Now that I think about it, these are the same reasons, I'm a plein air painter. 

Let's just let loose and have some fun with art. This is what I hope I'm teaching my students along with techniques of painting and drawing.


I'd like to hear your story of the most fun you ever had in the process of making art. When was it? Where were you? Were you alone or with someone else? What did you create? 

                           Go on, get out there and have some fun!

FINISHING AN UNFINISHED PAINTING

I have in my studio a box labeled "Unfinished Paintings." Since I work mainly outdoors or en plein air, sometimes the weather or the time of day or a prior commitment means that I must leave the scene without completing a painting.

Today, I opened that box and took out a memory of a sunny day and a Savannah landmark, Polk's Market. Becky, Elaine and I stood in the median of Liberty Street across from the market and painted, attracting onlookers, pedestrians and Mr. Polk himself, curious to see our paintings. I must say that Becky's painting took the prize that day, and mine went home not quite done.

Here is a look at the painting in its unfinished state and a look at its current "finished" state. As finished as it's going to get, anyway!

Finished: Polk's Market, 9X12", Oil on panel

I warmed it up and gave an indication of dappled sunlight on the walls, added some details and finished the lettering on the signs. I think the finishing touches gave it a feeling of summer, with the addition of leaves on the trees, rather than the wintry feel it had before. The leaves seem to form a natural frame for the painting.
What do you think? Should I have left well enough alone? Would you have finished it differently? Is it truly finished?