Dogwood Arts Chalk Walk

2016-04-09 15.53.09 On April 9th our co-founders Jessi, Katie and Zach took a little road trip up to Knoxville, TN to participate in the Dogwood Arts Chalk Walk. The Chalk Walk is a one day event that starts at sunup and runs into the afternoon.

The chalking happens in Market Square, an enclosed space made up of park and sidewalk that is surrounded by local restaurants and businesses. It’s a really cool spot. The chalk paintings aren’t arranged in long rows like many festivals that use the streets. Instead, the artists are given spaces all over Market Square to draw in.

So cold!

Our chalkers drove up to Tennessee on Friday night. Zach’s friend Jay lives in Knoxville and offered them a place to stay for the night. Unfortunately Zach left the reference drawings at Jay’s house, but Jay was the hero of the day and scanned the drawings and emailed them to Zach.

Once the supplies were dropped off, Jessi, Katie, and Zach were ready to get chalking. Katie used a pounce which greatly increased her speed for completing her piece. The surface wasn’t bad and Katie was quickly able to breath life into the details of her piece.

The day started in the 40s! We held out for the afternoon sunshine. The crowd was fairly thin, many in town said that it was unusually cold for the time of year, which may have contributed to less spectators. It seemed like a lot of people to us. Zach and Katie went to a nearby Urban Outfitters to pick up some socks to help keep warm. Weather-wise, this is NOT like the Florida festivals we normally attend!

Jessi and Katie relaxing after a long day of chalking!

Throughout the day it was fun to see so many great street paintings. There were artists of all ages and there were a lot of new faces for us since no one from the usual crew appeared to be there, which makes since since it’s a pretty long drive to make it that far north for festivals. Being from Atlanta, GA; we are lucky to be so centrally located to festivals like this.

Overall it was a fun event. There was a lot of continuous praise for our artists and at the end of the day when they announced winners in the various categories, Jessi and Katie both were awarded prizes! Katie received 3rd place in the individual adult artist category for her picture of a woman holding a conch shell and Jessi Queen was awarded best in show for her “Not Adele” piece. – She named it this because the festival was playing Adele on repeat and her model favored her. Everyone was asking so she eventually just wrote “NOT ADELE” next to her square.

After all the prizes were awarded, Zach went to hang out with his friend and Jessi and Katie spent some well deserved time exploring Knoxville. They can’t wait to go again! Special thanks to Avanti Savoia for sponsoring the awards!