We started on Friday by pouncing the pattern, then Wayne painted Fred the Lion and Cheryl started with Natalie, our Ringmaster (and her brother Jesse's arm, since it was next to Natalie's).
Sarasota International Chalk Festival, November 2012
We returned for our third year to Sarasota, Florida in November. This year, the festival theme was Circus City, honoring Sarasota's history as the winter home of the Ringling Brothers circus. We chose to celebrate the concept of the backyard circus, and recruited our young neighbors Jesse, Ava, Natalie, Giana and Isaac as our performers. None of them had ever been to a circus, but they were enthusiastic jugglers, clowns, lion tamers and ringmasters. The important role of Lion went to Fred, the geriatric orange cat who lives at Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden in Palo Alto.
We started on Friday by pouncing the pattern, then Wayne painted Fred the Lion and Cheryl started with Natalie, our Ringmaster (and her brother Jesse's arm, since it was next to Natalie's).
Wayne finishes up the apple basket Fred's sitting on.
Wayne paints Natalie's clothes. Observant viewers may recognize the outfits that Natalie, Ava and Giana are wearing from the last painting in San Ramon--both paintings originated at the same photo shoot.
Our Ringmaster is nearly finished.
By midmorning on Saturday, we'd finished Lion Tamer Ava and begun Giana the Clown.
Giana had a big foam clown nose and her daddy's shoes on, transforming her instantly into a clown.
Wayne starts to work on Isaac's shirt.
Early afternoon on Saturday: Cheryl paints Giana's face. All of the figures have been at least partly painted at this point, and Wayne has splatted in the broken eggs.
Open wide and say aah! This photo gives a sense of how large Giana's head was (we called her The Big G).
This perspective really shows how big Giana's head has to be to make the 3D perspective work.
Late afternoon on Saturday: Isaac gets some hair.
This girl braved death to pet our fierce lion.
We continued working on the painting after the sun went behind some buildings, as it was easier to paint once the long afternoon shadows were off the street.
Cheryl works on Isaac's face in the early evening.
On Sunday morning, Cheryl tackled Big Head Jesse.
An odd view of Ringmaster Natalie.
And a more normal view of her.
Ava tames Fierce Fred.
By lunchtime on Sunday, the walkways had filled with passers by. The festival wisely directed all viewers in one-way streams throughout the festival, with plenty of places to cross the street and walk the other direction.
After we finished lunch, we just had the circus ring to complete. No problem!
Two hours later, the ring is just about complete.
Ta da! Giana the Clown.
Ava the Lion Tamer.
Fierce Fred the Lion.
Juggler Jesse.
And Juggler Isaac (okay, we added the eggs).
And in the center of the ring, Natalie the Ringmaster!
Side view of the finished painting.
Luigi thought Fred should be a clown, too.
Ta da! The finished painting.
For a special treat, watch a time-lapse video on YouTube of the painting coming to life!
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