La Habra held its first ever Art Walk on July 18, 2015. As usual I opened my big mouth and volunteered to help. I said I had never made one of those 3D Chalk Drawings that you see in the internet but if they were interested, I could probably create one. David DeLeon of Community Planning was delighted. In my mind I started calculating the work preparation — the designing, the measuring, the execution and realized this was going to take at least half a day. So I tried to back pedal and reiterated that I had never done that before. But it was obvious David was already sold to the idea. My goose was cooked.
As the day approached I thought it was going to be cancelled because I had not heard anything more about it. Then Michelle Bernier of the La Habra Business Connection called about a week before D-Day and asked me what materials I needed. Never having done this before I said “colored chalk — lots of it.” And that was it. I hurriedly designed a great white shark coming out of a crack in the pavement. I coordinated with Luz Sparks of La Habra Art Gallery and she met with me Friday afternoon and checked out the site. After deciding where the shadows were going to fall at the time of the event, I started measuring the pavement and made the initial outlines. The sun was shining in full glory so I figured I was going to get burned doing this the next day.
Saturday morning, the day of the event, I started the work. Curious passersby looked at it approvingly. I felt I was on the right track. Looking at the limited colors available, I had to adjust to what was in the original design. Anyway, about 3 hours into the drawing, I saw tiny raindrops splatter on the design. I looked up and saw ominous clouds laughing at me — daring me to continue. I’m an optimist (a stupid one at that) and continued — “surely Mother Nature wouldn’t ruin the fun for all the kids and families, right?” Well, I was wrong. Within a few minutes it started to pour … and pour … and pour.
Here is what I did before the rain:
And here is what happened during the rain.
Washed away
Oh well, at least one kid was able to take a souvenir of the very first Art Walk in La Habra — that never was.
If you want to read more about this, I posted this on 2 websites:
- Art Tickles – my website featuring a variety of my artwork
- La Habra Business Connection – a business networking group
