Danville Fine Arts Faire--June 2008

We've developed an interest in the illustrators from the Golden Age of Illustration: Jessie Willcox Smith, Warwick Goble, Howard Pyle, and N.C. Wyeth (father of Andrew Wyeth). For our third year in Danville, we decided to paint one of N.C. Wyeth's Robin Hood illustrations, Robin Hood and The Men of Greenwood.

We started out by transferring our drawing to the pavement by dusting powdered chalk through holes poked through the paper along the traced lines.

Cheryl started with the Merry Man on the far right of the painting. We dubbed him Chuck of Linsley after a college friend who bore a resemblance to the original.

The first layer of chalk on Chuck.

As Cheryl applied more chalk, his face changed form.

More personality appeared with every stroke.

Meanwhile, Wayne painted a giant moon and evening winter sky with a little help from some friends.

Cheryl finished Chuck of Linsley and started on the next guy, who we thought looked like Friar Tuck. It was too hot to put rubber gloves on her hands, so Cheryl just wore a glove on her first two fingers.

By mid-afternoon on Saturday, we knew we needed to pick up the pace. Cheryl had done only two faces (four more to go). Wayne had done all the background sky and foliage, but wasn't happy with the left-hand tree, so he repainted it.

An hour later, Cheryl had finished Merry Man #4 (Grumpy? Sneezy? Wary?) and had started on Little John. We decided that none of them looked too merry. Next to us, our friend Alice was painting another N.C. Wyeth painting (The Giant), so we figured the Men of Greenwood were dreading a possible battle with the giant next door.

Giant? What giant?

Wayne taught a little boy how to paint a tree.

A minor setback occurred when Alice's water dish for thirsty dogs was caught by a gust of wind and blown uphill to end up on our even-less-merry men. But no worries--we took a break, let it dry, and had a few places to clean up when we returned.

Sunday morning, Wayne started work on clothing the Merry Men.

Cheryl worked on Robin--by this point, she'd finished all six faces.

We both decided that this guy looked thoroughly untrustworthy.

Mid-afternoon on Sunday: we continued to work on clothing the band.

Hey, Wayne!

All done!

Closeup of the center section.

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