Chalk It Up to Artistic Freedom : Art: Sidewalk drawings don’t last. They don’t pay. But they allow the creators to do as they please.

The day after artists David Medore and Kenneth Gatewood spent six hours chalking James Dean onto Sunset Boulevard earlier this month, only a couple of smudges remained.

No matter. For the two sidewalk artists, whose efforts are usually exhibited on the Venice boardwalk, the important thing is not how long their works last. Nor is money a factor--at best, they are reimbursed for their expenses. Rather, what counts for the pair is the freedom of expression that their monthly collaborations provide, even though they literally fade from view within 24 hours.

Said Medore: “Doing this is who I am.”

It has been two years since Medore, 26, started creating oversized--albeit ephemeral--sidewalk portraits of famous people after realizing that his commercial art career was paying his bills but not satisfying his soul.

It wasn’t that Medore’s commercial work had not been widely seen. He spent five years painting some of the city’s largest billboards, including one 12 stories high in Hollywood that featured Rick Dees. A year ago, Medore moved on to pictorial art at Disneyland, touching up the cartoons that provide the backgrounds for amusement rides and doing backdrops for display windows.

All of this work, however, was outlined in advance by someone else; none of it really felt like his own.

And so, following the example of other artists he had seen intermittently in Venice, Medore began chalking his portraits on the Venice boardwalk. After two other partners decided that the resultant self-expression was not worth the monthly hassle, he hooked up with Gatewood.

For Medore, the artistic “buzz” starts two weeks ahead of each project. He plans what to draw, goes through newspapers and magazines to get the best available photos of his subject and buys the proper colored chalks. His costs can reach as high as $50.

Medore prefers chalk because that medium allows for splashier, more vivid colors. And, he said: “There’s nothing to dry. Unlike with paint, you don’t need all those other supplies like brushes, turpentine and thinner.”

Chalk is also strictly legal, earning only encouraging comments and nods of appreciation from pedestrians and passing police officers. Paint, he said, might bring him harsher attention.

Chalk’s relative simplicity, however, does not spare Medore the aching knees or a sore back that result from crouching over his work, nor does it prevent an occasional fiasco.

Medore remembers in particular his portrait last year of Peg Bundy, the money-hungry mother in the Fox television series, “Married With Children.”

“We hadn’t planned it out right; it was too complicated. We were trying to get her face and hair and her hands around the money; we were going for too much detail,” he said.

Rather than the usual six hours, Medore and former partner Mike Ashmore spent a full eight on Bundy. Not only did Bundy take the most effort and receive the fewest comments of any of the portraits--Batman’s “Joker” was his most popular effort, based on pedestrian comments--it also prompted Ashmore to abandon sidewalk artistry for the relatively simple life of oil and canvas.

Medore then teamed up with the 30-year-old Gatewood, whom he knew through art classes at Los Angeles Trade Technical College.

Unlike Medore’s upper-middle-class background, Gatewood grew up in South-Central Los Angeles, where an appreciation for colors was necessary for survival among rival gangs.

Gatewood’s color consciousness, however, extended beyond that needed to avoid gangs. At 9, he received his first commission: painting a Christmas scene for a local podiatrist’s office window. He promptly invested his $45 fee into more art supplies and has pursued an art career ever since. His works have been displayed in Las Vegas and San Diego galleries, where they sell for up to $6,500 apiece.

Part of his motivation in drawing the sidewalk portraits is simple showmanship--getting away from the solitary studio and socializing.

But with several of his boyhood friends dead from violence or drug abuse, and three of his six brothers and sisters hooked on drugs, Gatewood said he has another reason for joining Medore.

“The difference between those who do and those who don’t make it out (of his old neighborhood) is will and persistence. A lot of kids have the raw talent; all they need to do is to develop it. I wanted to show, as publicly as I can, that that’s possible,” he said.

The recent Medore-Gatewood work on Sunset near Highland Avenue came about after Venice resident Miriam More noticed their boardwalk portrait of Jim Henson. More, organizer of the annual Hollywood Art Affair, commissioned them to draw James Dean as part of the art show, reimbursing them for the price of supplies.

Accepting the job, Medore and Gatewood discovered that Hollywood’s attractions did not include the string bikinis and ocean breezes they had grown used to on the boardwalk. Regardless, the public response--including phone numbers they collect from women who see Michelangelos in the making--was worth the effort, they said.

“I’m never going to make money from this,” Medore said. “But this is my own art, my thing.”

He added, “I’ve gotten hooked on it.”