Hudson Valley Chalk Festival, July 19-20, 2014

The Hudson Valley Chalk Festival takes place in a small town that is about a two hour drive up the Hudson River from New York City. We were honored to be invited once again to the third annual festival where we decided to do another adventure painting: Street Painting with Kayaks.

The festival is a three day event, Friday for layout and laying in some basic color and Saturday and Sunday to finish. This image is approximately 12' x 18'

By the end of Friday we had "logged" the upper half of the painting and a bit of the river.

Saturday went swimmingly as well. Here is the distorted view of the river seen from the top.

Time for a little fun playing with the drawing

We brought in a few junior kayakers to pose with our image.

Good clean fun! Who says that chalk and water don't mix? (a bit of foreshadowing there...)

By mid day on Saturday we had decided that the pace of our painting was too fast: if we didn't slow down and goof off more then we we would finish on Saturday and would have nothing to do on Sunday.

Such thinking usually foreshadows some flavor of doom.

At 10:00 pm we got the call: Rain is coming. The drawings need to be covered. We sent a crew of artists down to the site with duct tape, cardboard and plastic sheeting. Everything was covered and sealed tight.

Sadly, half of the water from the site flowed through our painting. Our little boats got swamped.

Step one: Blow dry the painting. With an umpteen horsepower leaf blower it took 30 minutes to get most of the water off.

The surface was still too damp to paint until almost noon.

And so it begins. Again.

It is always faster the second time around.

Paddle faster!

Swimming right along.

One of the best things about working in a tribe of artists is that often times heroes will come to your rescue. Katie Better came in and helped with the canyons and the boat. Sharyn and Lorelle came in and helped with the plantings.

Sharyn adding the fern at the base.

Our overly serious kayaker.

Downstream

Balancing on the log watching the little boats float by.

Nate points out the little guy downstream.

Brooms make great paddles.

Kayaking through the parking lot.

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