Ventura : Young Street Artists Chalk Up 30 Pieces
At school, white chalk is used by teachers to write lessons on the blackboard. But today at Ventura High School, the students are wielding a rainbow of chalk to draw pictures on the pavement.
At the sixth annual Il Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival, up to 150 art students are completing 30 paintings, copies of works by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keefe and Diego Rivera as well as original designs.
“Disney is very popular,” said Patti Post, art teacher and initiator of the event.
The public is welcome on campus today to watch the students work.
Groups of three to six students work on patches of pavement, which measure up to 15 by 30 feet.
Teachers, parents, other students or businesses pay to sponsor a painting, helping to cover the $1,000 worth of chalk used during the two-day festival, which began Thursday.
The chalk paintings have a luminous quality not seen at similar festivals. That’s because the area used is just outside the cafeteria, where a patina of “about 100 years of layers on layers of grease” covers the pavement, Post said.
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