Mount Vernon Music and Art Festival
Aug. 13-14, 2021
I was so excited to get accepted to this festival! I looked forward to it. I was going to get paid very well for it too. So I decided to do a more complicated design than what I usually do: a carousel. I redid my carousel drawing 3 times, so I thought I was ready.
Friday
It was going to be an exciting weekend. I was supposed to attend both Friday and Saturday if I could. My husband and I traveled over to Mount Vernon on Friday afternoon. I got a discount on a hotel room at a hotel in town, so we decided to take advantage of it. We arrived Friday about 4 and I got my space taped off and my grid put down. I don't usually work with a grid, but I thought it might be a good idea with such a difficult subject matter. I got finished just before it began raining. It was a hard rain during the early evening and it rained off and on all night. We were able to watch a band in the evening between the rains though.
Looking down the street where our chalk designs were going to be!
The beginning: the tape!
The grid
The view from my hotel window before the rain.
The rain in the afternoon
Enjoyed the concert in the evening.
Saturday
Because I was just right down the street, I was able to get going early on my chalk design. The rain didn't even wash away my grid all the way. So I was ready to get going in right away in the morning. It was a good thing too. I was fortunate that I had shade covering my design until about 12:30. After that it got so hot! It was supposed to be cooler that day, but it sure wasn't at all!
My design also turned out to be quite a challenge! I decided to work from the top down. I got the top of the carousel with no problem, in fact it was looking pretty, good. But the bottom half was a nightmare! I just wasn't sure what to do with the inside of the carousel. I tried to use a color called red/brown, but it turned out to be orange. I didn't like that at all, so I ended up just putting gray over it to darken it and make it go into the background. By the time I got to the horses I was so tired and it was so hot, I just couldn't do a good job on them at all. I just wanted to be done with it. I finally got finished about 3:00 and it felt like it was 100 degrees out side. I was so tired! I was so unhappy with the design. But when I posted pictures on Facebook everyone liked it and that made me feel so much better. My husband, Doug and I stayed around for some supper, before heading home later that evening. Really wished we had booked a room for that night too! But it was so good to be home after such a long day!
The view from my hotel room, right down the street from where I would be working.
Finished design
The beginning: The grid and the tape from the day before were there even after all the rain we had!
My design
Reference photos
Doug stopped by to take a picture of me before he went off on his bike ride. This is what he often does while I'm doing chalk art!
My Sketch
Step #1
Step #2
Step #3
Stept #4 (Didn't like the orange inside color, although now it doesn't look too bad!)
Step #5 Added the bottom and tried to make the red/orange inside darker.
Stept #6 Working on the horses.
Step #6 Making the inside darker so it will fall back into the picture.
Step #7 Darker still
Called it finished at last! Before the tape came off.
Close up pic!
Sideways pics!
!
Not too bad after all!
These two pictures (above and below) were from event photos. You can see my artwork from above and me working on my design early in the day!
Well after all was said and done...not too bad after all! I was hot and tired though!
This was from an upstairs window, but unfortunately the screen was in the way!
Better pictures from later that evening!
