Sidewalk Art

We went to the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts on Saturday. They closed off University Ave. and a handful of cross streets. It was great. Lots of really expensive doodads. One photographer caught my eye: Lisa Kristine. Her photos stood out from the others as they featured people in beautiful landscapes. Most of the other photographers stuck with scenery--probably because it sells better.

She had a great photo of a man standing in front of a minaret in Turpan, China. Not the usual architecture you expect when you think China. Of course, the country is so big the variety is endless. Of course, I had to Google it. It's called the Emin Minaret. Here's a little info site.

Also at the festival: Sidewalk chalk drawings. Really amazing. Here's the original:


Here's the artist, working on the street version:



It looked like there were two major methods of execution. One was to create a full scale drawing on a piece of butcher paper, prick holes along the outline and lay it on the street. Then dust the holes with chalk to get an outline transfered onto the street.

The other method was to break the photo version up with a grid and sketch the drawing onto the sidewalk square by square.

We also ran into one of my favorite pictures in college. See if you can identify it: