2024 Pasadena Chalk Festival - DisneyMon - Day 1

It's Day 1 of the Pasadena Chalk Festival and we're all super excited to be drawing together as a family! 

When we were trying to decide what to do, the kids deferred to me, saying "you always do Disney, so we should do something you like. Like Hercules." While I do love Hercules, I think we should do something that we all like. We thought on it a little more, and I don't know who it was that ultimately suggested the Pokemon and Disney collaboration, but when we heard it, we knew it was a great idea! 

What would it be like if the Pokemon gang went to Disneyland and all dressed up! We started imagining what characters would go, which costumes each would wear, and all sorts of fun idea. Some haven't been implemented in the final design, but we'll see what kind of time we have when we're done. 
"What about hidden Mickey Dittos! We'll call them Middos!"
"We could have Rayquaza dressed as Tinker Bell and flying over the castle!"

Whew! Some wild ideas, but let's start on Day 1. 

Normally we'd get started early in the morning on Saturday, but knowing the kids wouldn't love getting up, we waited a little longer than normal. I went down to make sure the spot was still looking good and that I didn't need to clean up anything in the white base coat that might have happened overnight. Nope! All good! 

Ruston, Curt, and Charlotte are all already hard at work. Ruston has his design traced out and is starting on the face. 

Great Ruston! I'm a little sad that we're not a team together this year, but I'm happy that he's getting to do his own thing that he loves and we're doing our thing. 

Hey! It's Charlie Sanchez! I've seen him since our first year here. It's always good to see him walking around and doing his video reviews.

The kids sent me pictures of them at breakfast. 

Then wandered over by 9:15am. 

Now that they're here, we'll get started. First we'll take our painting to the Artist Check-In table. 

Here we'll get our lanyards, chalk, and shirts.

Plus breakfast if we want it. 

Some artists can freehand it. Others use a grid system. One person I know comes at night with a projector! We have a system that works for us. I print everything on 3'x4' paper with some overlap. That gets taped together and turns into a 1:1 copy of the final drawing. 

After that, we cover the back with chalk completely, in effect making our own carbon paper. We've learned over the years to use a lighter color because it won't "bleed" into the final drawing as much. 

Something like 4 sticks of yellow chalk to coat the entire back of the paper. 

After that, everyone grabs a pen and we make sure to draw on EVERY SINGLE LINE. It doesn't look too bad at the beginning, but then you realize just how many lines there are. We check each others work to make sure we don't miss anything, and then lift the paper by the corner to make sure everything is transferring like we thought. 

Taking a quick break to see Stanley. It's a must. 

Back to our line work. Effort now will pay off later. 

People stopped by and were excited by the mashup of Pokemon and Disney. The kids have their Pikachu and Snorlax plushes and asked the kids if they wanted to pet a wild Pokemon. 

With our lines down, it's time to start filling things in with color. 

It started with Theresa and I outlining large swaths of color and having the kids fill it in. 

There's a lot of color to go! Alli is working on Eevee's tail. 

Ruston is moving right along quickly. 

Theresa is doing a great job with the meticulous lettering and the castle outline. 

Alli is moving on to Pikachu's Mickey ears, while Ian colors in Jigglypuff. 

The volunteers working the festival today are outstanding. Offering cold water constantly, extra chalk, and even rags soaked in cold water. It's a hot one today for sure. 

Looking good T! 

I think that's a good place to stop for now. Let's go to lunch. 

In the past, we'd head over to Islands at the Paseo Colorado Mall next door. That closed down a couple years ago. Since then, we've gone to Rubio's instead. I'm hungry. Let's eat! 

Oops. Yet another store in the Paseo Colorado that has closed. I wonder how much management not wanting to host the Chalk Festival has had to do with losing business. From talking to stores in the past, Chalk Festival Weekend was busier than Black Friday for them. 

Ian and I walked down the street to grab Blaze Pizza, while T and Alli went to the hotel room to cut up fruit and veggies. 

When we sat down to eat, this little girl was hanging out with Ruston just chatting away. 

And when we finished 15 minutes later, she was still talking with him. Ruston let her name his Barbie, and she chose Unicorn Larson. I love it! 

With full bellies, we started working again. 

There's a DJ who is playing songs for the festival. Earlier, Ian went and requested something specific, and a bit later after lunch, we heard a shoutout!

"To the family over on Green Street who are drawing Pokemon, this one is for you!"

T did an awesome job on the balloon. 

And I am still a big proponent of the boogie boards for chalking. You can really lay out on them. Much better than little carpet squares or cardboard. Just make sure you flip them over if you're not using them, because they can get HOT! 

Ruston's is looking great! Follow him and DollDecree on Instagram! 

Theresa and Ian are doing great outlining those letter. 

And you know what I've learned? Little fingers work so much better at rubbing in those finer details than my fatter fingers do. Thank you Alli for doing all this great outlining! 

It's all coming together! 

Alli is doing great! And you know, Ian is doing great! Both of them have been an awesome help this year! They're not just watching while T and I work, they are both getting their hands dirty and really helping move things along! 

Ian is always engaging though. He's a definite people person and will talk to anyone. 

As the day starts to wind down, we're figuring out where we want to stop for the day. 

We're going to tighten up some lines and outline just a few more things. 

The rest we're going to leave for tomorrow. 

Definitely looking the part of a chalk artist. Knees and hands covered with chalk. T said she washed her hands 15 times today! 

That's a good place to stop for the night! Tomorrow we'll tighten up a few more lines and think about adding a background to it all. 

But I'm really happy with everything we've been able to do today. We're received a whole lot of good compliments and met lots of friendly people. 

What we haven't had much time to do is go around and see all our fellow artists. Tomorrow I hope to be done earlier so we can look at everyone's murals! 

Time to cover things for the night. Sometimes it's malicious, but most of the time it's obliviousness that causes murals to get messed up overnight. I remember one year hearing about someone deliberately riding their bike through all the murals. In order to ward against either cause, before we leave for the night, we try to take precautions. An umbrella barrier and plastic dropcloth on top. 

Similar for Ruston. Lots of cones. 

Looking good Curt! 

And Charlotte, things are coming together great! 

All the other artists, we hope to see you tomorrow! Until next time!