Our Chalk Walk Art

So the morning of the chalk festival I showed Lydia my idea for drawing her holding up a piece of paper and then letting her draw what was on the paper. We apparently had creative differences!

While I got dressed, Lydia drew a picture of her design, a rainbow with our family under it. She was very specific that she would draw the people and PJ and I would draw the rainbow and write all the names.

I still wanted part of the finished artwork to be realistic, so I asked Lydia to pose for a photo like she was drawing the rainbow.

Here is my quick sketch of my idea incorporating both of our designs.

I arrived early to get the realistic part finished and to get everything ready so that Lydia could get right to work when she arrived. Below you can see multiple shots of the progress on our design.

Something that I read suggested starting with a detailed part of the design, especially eyes if possible, to draw in public interest. So, I quickly drew the face and got the eyes and smile detailed as soon as possible.

The hair is only a start, but the face is coming together. She's not as smiley as I wanted and she looks to old, but she looks human so I'm happy!

Next I added more shadows to the face and started putting in the shirt color.

In order to draw the arms and hands I needed to start the rainbow shape that the girl would be drawing. I knew Lydia could do the rest of the rainbow so I stopped with the red.

The legs and hair came together quickly. It all felt like it came together quickly, though, because I was enjoying it so much! PJ showed up with Lydia and they immediately got lunch. I kept thinking it was only 10 am when it was probably much later.

It really got fun once the family showed up. By then the crowds had picked up and having a picture of a little girl drawing and a REAL little girl drawing got lots of attention.

Once the rainbow was finished, Lydia started on her drawing of our family.

I love the details like our red hair, the glasses on me and PJ, the fingers on our hands, and the three hairs on Joshua's head!

Before we knew it, we were finished!

I added some fake chalk to make the drawing more realistic and we added some white chalk writing around the top to fill the empty space.

I am a little sore, slightly sun burned, but VERY proud of our family!