Chalk the Walk 07

Wendy and I had a great time participating in the 2nd annual Madonnari festival in Mount Vernon, IA this past weekend. The weather wasn't quite as cooperative as last year, but fun was had nonetheless! We decided on a reproduction of Van Gogh's bedroom for our piece, which turned into a bit of a parody when we girly-fied it into "Van Gogh's girlfriend's bedroom".
Saturday we started out by finding our 8'x10' spot on the main street and drawing out a grid of one foot squares. That called for a break to head down to Fuel/Nest, a great coffee shop and art shop downtown to claim a large metal rooster for each of us. Sounds funny - but we fell in love with them last May, and by the time we showed our interest, they were sold. So we weren't wasting any time this year and the roosters are *ours*. love!
The rest of Saturday was spent sketching out the shapes of our piece and filling in about half the color - along with a fair bit of socializing and eating. We finished off the night with a yummy grilled dinner at Wendy and Jeremy's and some board games.
Sunday morning was cold (for May) and windy, so we slowly made our way to our spot, coffee in hand, determined to finish before the impending rain storms made it to Mt. Vernon. Meanwhile, one of the local news stations showed up and wanted to interview us about our piece and the festival - I was on the 5:30, 10:00pm, and apparently this morning's news! That was exciting and embarrassing at the same time!
The rain held off until we took a break for lunch, then a steady rain started the long process of washing the art away. A few people tried to cover their chalk or continue to work in the wetness, but since we were already mostly done, we said C'est la vie! and went off to pick up our roosters and have a delicious cup of hot chocolate. All in all, an excellent weekend. If you would like to see more pictures, check out Wendy's blog or my Flickr photoset. I also added the first photo above to the group pool for 24 hours of Flickr - a collaborative project to share photos from May 5, 2007, some of which will eventually be made into a book. Check it out - lots of really great photos.