Pasadena Chalk Festival: Follow-up with PHOTOS

I posted last week about the Pasadena Chalk Festival to get the word out if you wanted to go. I would add this follow-up as a comment to that post, if I were able to insert photos in the comment form. Anyways, I went, and had a great time! I'd never been before, though I'd seen it listed in the newspaper for several years with interest. The crowds were a bit overwhelming, so prepare yourself. The event's held in a mall, so I figured it would be spread out, but all the action is in the center courtyard, so it gets packed. Yet the artwork was far more amazing than I'd anticipated. And I'd definitely go back another year.

I took a slew of photographs of chalk artists and their work, and also browsed the Antique mall that was adjacent to the plaza. Finally, I topped off my afternoon with a Tazoberry Passion Iced Tea from Starbucks as a treat to cool myself down (the iced tea was $2.00, as opposed to a four-dollar latte). The worst part was the parking--I ended up four blocks away just to find a free meter, instead of the mall parking, which was charged per every fifteen minutes.

The award winners are posted on the festival website (linked above). Check them out too--I don't think I'd photographed any of them!

Lots of artists were working from a sketch or photograph; the person above worked from a magazine clipping. The prep work and thought they'd put into this weekend were obvious. It was really neat to see their inspiration, and the concept from the beginning. Several projects had teams of artists, like this one below. I tried to photograph the artist's names so that I could attribute their work, but once in a while I was negligent.

The angel below was my favorite of the event, along with the peacock. I wish I'd taken more details, especially of this one.

Just as much fun as photographing the artwork was using the artists themselves as subjects. I love the concentration on their faces as they worked long hours for days in a row in the hot sun. Often they were sitting on cardboard to prevent smudging their work. The edges of their frames were taped off both to make them straight and clean, and to make them obvious to all the festival attendees wandering about.