Sidewalk chalk is typically large and thick sticks of chalk (
calcium sulfate
Calcium sulfate (or calcium sulphate) is the inorganic compound with the formula CaSO4 and related hydrates. In the form of γ-anhydrite (the anhydrous form), it is used as a desiccant. One particular hydrate is better known as plaster of Pari ...
, gypsum, rather than
calcium carbonate, rock chalk) that come in multiple colors and are mostly used for
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
on
pavement or
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
sidewalk
A sidewalk (North American English), pavement (British English), footpath in Australia, India, New Zealand and Ireland, or footway, is a path along the side of a street, street, highway, terminals. Usually constructed of concrete, pavers, brick ...
s, frequently
four square
Four square is a team sport played among two teams with two players each on a square court divided into four quadrants: A, B, C, and D (usually numbers 3, 4, 2, and 1, respectively, depending on the court.) The square that a player gets to befo ...
courts or a
hopscotch
Hopscotch is a popular playground game in which players toss a small object, called a lagger, into numbered triangles or a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces and retrieve the object. It is a ch ...
boards.
Blackboard
A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made of ...
chalk, typically used in educational settings, is shorter and thinner than sidewalk chalk.
There are several different types of sidewalk chalk, typically coming in solid-colored sticks. 3-D sidewalk chalk sets, in which each stick of chalk is created with two particular colors that appear
3-dimensional
Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal ...
when viewed through the 3-D glasses that come with the chalk, also exist.
[3-D sidewalk chalk. (2008). Scholastic Parent & Child, 16(2), 14.]
Sidewalk chalk can be cheaply homemade from water, paint and
plaster of Paris
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...
.
[Make your own sidewalk chalk. (1998, July 21). Christian Science Monitor. 13.]
Use
Sidewalk chalk is used at some universities to advertise for events, especially where there is much
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
. Prohibitions are set for where students can chalk, usually limiting it to areas that will be washed away with rain, or areas which are set to be cleaned of chalk markings.
Some teachers promote use of sidewalk chalk on a carpet as an interactive teaching tool.
[Davenport, J. (2007). Classroom essentials. Teacher Magazine, 18(4), 16.]
Although sidewalk chalk is created to allow people to draw on sidewalks or pavement, some law enforcement agencies may prohibit sidewalk drawing in certain areas without first being requested for authorization.
[Boretz, A., & Beever, J. (2010). Where the sidewalk ends. Publishers Weekly, 257(41), 34.]
Events
On September 16–17, 2006, a global event was held to promote
peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
through sidewalk chalk drawings.
[Prest, M. J. (2006). Drawn together. Chronicle Of Philanthropy, 18(23), 1.] Chalk4Peace was a project planned by an
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
from
Arlington, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is ...
named John Aaron, who asked children and teens from the age of eight to age eighteen to participate in groups across the world to draw chalk
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
s that would illustrate
peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
for one of the Chalk4Peace events.
Designated areas on sidewalks, pavement, and
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...
were used for the participants to draw on while volunteers took pictures of the
street paintings.
Aaron used his own
money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...
and
donations
A donation is a gift for charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donation may satisfy medical needs such as b ...
to provide sidewalk chalk to areas of the world that he believed did not have access to good quality chalk.
There are many
competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
s for chalk
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
s, including the
Pavement Art Competition in the Bold Street Festival in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
in 2010.
The largest sidewalk chalk festival in the world is the
Pasadena Chalk Festival, held annually in
Pasadena
Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
Its ...
, California. The 2010 edition involved about six hundred artists of all ages and skills and attracted more than 100,000 visitors.
Art
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
s such as
Kurt Wenner
Kurt Wenner is an American artist, he is known for his 3D pavement art shown internationally.
Early life and education
Wenner was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1958, but grew up in Santa Barbara, California. He attended Rhode Island School of ...
,
Ellis Gallagher
Ellis Gallagher is an artist and painter known primarily for street drawings made by working with different sources of light and shadows and chalk on the streets of New York City, as well as other international destinations. Gallagher was born in M ...
and
Julian Beever
Julian Beever (born c. 1959) is a British sidewalk chalk artist who has been creating ''trompe-l'œil'' chalk drawings on pavement surfaces since the mid-1990s. He uses a projection technique called anamorphosis to create the illusion of three ...
have created intricate and realistic
street paintings using the chalk and
pastels
A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...
. It is typical for sidewalk chalk
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
s to use
anamorphic
Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distorted ...
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
when drawing with sidewalk chalk. Nonanamorphic
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
are drawings that are drawn to be observed face-on, whereas
anamorphic
Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distorted ...
drawings are drawn to be observed from a different viewpoint.
Julian Beever
Julian Beever (born c. 1959) is a British sidewalk chalk artist who has been creating ''trompe-l'œil'' chalk drawings on pavement surfaces since the mid-1990s. He uses a projection technique called anamorphosis to create the illusion of three ...
, in a Q&A with Adam Boretz,
explained his
drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, ...
of his first
anamorphic
Anamorphic format is the cinematography technique of shooting a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio. It also refers to the projection format in which a distorted ...
sidewalk chalk drawing, Swimming Pool:
Sidewalk Sam
Sidewalk Sam is the pseudonym of Robert Charles Guillemin (May 4, 1939 – January 26, 2015), a Boston-based artist who resided in Newton, Massachusetts. He is best recognized for his reproductions of European masterpieces, chalked or painted on ...
was well known in the Boston area for his reproductions of European masterpieces, chalked or painted on the sidewalk.
["In Boston, There Is A Danger of Stepping On, Say A Rembrandt," by Laird Hart, ''The Wall Street Journal'', July 17, 1974, page 1.]
References
External links
Busker Alley- videos of sidewalk artists with chalks and paints
Drawing on EarthWorld's Largest Chalk Drawing
Pasadena Chalk Festivalofficial site
{{Authority control
Visual arts materials
Writing implements
Pavement art