Upon seeing the Sarasota Chalk Festival advertised, I decided to attend.  Getting many e-mails from friends with attachments of street paintings, I am always impressed and wondered how the artists create those 3-D images they paint on the streets.

This year’s theme for Sarasota’s Chalk Festival is “Legacy of Valor” which was held from November 13th through November 18th and honors veterans, inspires patriotism and embraces freedom.  This is an incredible undertaking!  The featured artists are the street painters who travel from all over the world.  They typically labor on their hands and knees for 36 hours (the first 3 days) using pastel chalk as their medium and 12 foot square road surface as their canvas.

Participating artists come from almost every state, and the international artists travel from Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Russia, Japan, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, and India. The festival pays for all costs of the artists to participate, including travel. It receives more than 1,000 applications a year from around the world even though it stopped putting out a call to artists three years ago.  Although national and international artists go through an approval process to participate, the festival always finds space for local artists and students no matter what skill level.

I didn’t realize that Leonardo da Vinci created the earliest known definitive example of anamorphosis (3-D) of a child’s face in the Codex Atlanticus dating from the 1480’s.  But it was not until 1984 when Kurt Wenner created the first 3-D on the ground.  Walking through the displays, I found the very sharp 3-D creations are viewed through a special glass. However, some of the displays look 3-D without these glass lenses.

I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I did walking the displays.

AL

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