Every year in this little town called Martinsville, Indiana they have a fun artistic event that my kids plan all summer long to do. A Chili-cook off and chalk art contest. My girls and I love the chalk art contest. We collect chalk all year and we have a big tub of it along with a bag of charcoal (for black). The Martinsville Chamber of Commerce puts on the event to raise money for their youth scholarships. There are many artistic people in Martinsville and I always am in awe of what they draw at the festival. Its taken seriously as many will show up early to have time to finish their creations.
We arrived a little before 11 a.m. this year which gave us about an hour and a half to draw. Chalk drawing takes a long time, especially when you have a big space. This year my eldest daughter barely finished her drawing in time. She loves horses and has drawn a horse for the past three years. This year she wanted to try to draw in black and white.
We have a wonderful day. After drawing our pictures we try the different chili’s and vote for our favorite. The farmers market is always close by too. My daughter took a friend this year and they bought some apples to munch on instead of the snacks I packed.
We’ve been coming to this event for about 5 or 6 years and we’ve learned a few tricks on how to draw chalk well. We always plan our drawings out first in the space with white or light colored chalk. Other colors cover this up easy and you can get your mistakes out of the way. Chalk is very forgiving when you make mistakes usually you can just smear or blow the chalk away and go over the mistake. Smearing is an art. We used to use our hands, sleeves whatever we could until I took a chalk art class with Jennifer James who taught us the secret of pool noodles. I usually by a few from the dollar store and tear them up. They are perfect for smearing the chalk around and blending. You don’t tear up your hands and you don’t waste as much chalk. Unfortunately they are very light and can blow away very easily which is what happened to us this year halfway thru drawing. The other secret we’ve learned is the importance of charcoal. Most chalk boxes don’t include a black and if they do it doesn’t last long. Charcoal, like what you use in your grill, works really well and lasts longer. I’ve had the same bag of charcoal for 4 years. It is really easy to outline your work with charcoal when your done to make it stand out and keep your picture easy to see.
This year’s festival was a welcome beginning to fall for us I hope you enjoy our pictures below. Mine is the sunflowers and pumpkins, My daughter is the horse and her friend made the anime of Totoro.
2BecomeBrave 