2015 Pasadena Chalk Festival practice session

Every year, Theresa, Jacob, Ruston and I make sure we leave Father's Day weekend free so we can attend the Pasadena Chalk Festival. This year however is going to be a little different.

This year, not only will we be attending the festival, this year Ruston and I are actually competing!
On Saturday, June 13th, all the new artists were invited to attend a workshop, to help them with technique.

Today our featured artist is Randall Williams of randallwilliamsart.com. He's been doing chalk art for the past 20 years, and he's here today to help all us newbies know what to expect.

 Randall started out by sketching out a grid on the ground.

After putting some rough lines down he started filling in color. One of the things he stressed was going slow and not creating a lot of extra chalk dust.

It's important to put down a good base of color.

Then work some of the fine details later.

We took a brief break and learned the history of the festival and the Lightbringer Project.

After the history, we got a few more instructions on what to expect next Saturday.

Randall continued his instruction, making us get our hands dirty by showing us differences in chalk from different companies.

The pastel chalk is a bit more gritty but has more saturated colors. The crayola is much softer, and is good as a base coat to layer other colors on top of.

Next Randall gave us a quick tutorial on how to draw more realistic eyes.

After 2:15, it was time for us to practice on our own.

Ruston and I spoke with Randall afterwards to get some info on picking a good location. The main pathway is of course preferred. That's where the most traffic is. There's even a "best" spot that lots of artists show up early to try to get. It's right at the bottom of the elevator and stairs and there is a great view of it from the 2nd floor.

No chance that we'll get this spot, but still, interesting to know.

Ruston testing the ground to see how it compares to the driveway we've been practicing on.

The next day, I went home and decided to see how long it would take me to do a full size version of 1 of the 4 panels. Enjoy the time-lapse.

I learned a lot of good things from the practice run. Let's hope when we do it for real next weekend it all goes well.
If you're in the area, please stop by! The event runs Saturday and Sunday, but I'd suggest coming on Sunday when most of the murals are more complete.