On March 23, music wafted through the air as students made chalk art pieces together in the quad throughout the school day. The Chalk Festival, founded by art teacher Justin Frazier, presents students from Art 2 and above with the opportunity to get excused from class in order to create a chalk piece with a group.

On March 23, music wafted through the air as students made chalk art pieces together in the quad throughout the school day.

The Chalk Festival, founded by art teacher Justin Frazier, presents students from Art 2 and above with the opportunity to get excused from class in order to create a chalk piece with a group.

The chalk pieces are auctioned off at the Art Show, to be held on April 29, and the money earned goes directly into the Art Department funds.

“It’s a change of pace, students get to be outside, the rest of the school gets to see what they’re doing- a lot of times the art is created in the art room and they don’t get to share it, but with this, the whole school gets to see the artwork,” Frazier said.

“Students also get to be with their friends and create art, so there’s a lot of positives,” Frazier said.

This year, groups worked together to recreate pre-existing images of their choosing.

Juniors Danielle Askar and Taylor Snell worked together to create a chalk version of a picture they found on social media.

They both expressed enjoyment of the event.

“We get to skip class to do something that we love to do, so that’s nice and we get to sit outside all day, eat and work on art and those are the three best things you can do,” Askar said.

“This is my first time doing it and I’m very excited because […] it’s just very nice to be outside all day working on art,” Snell said.

The students also felt that the chalk festival helped teach them new art skills.

“It’s on a really big scale so instead of just doing smaller work all year we get to practice on bigger work as well while using chalk, which we don’t use very often,” Askar said.

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“Since we get to do teamwork, it helps us learn to work with other people and it teaches us to work with a different material that a lot of people don’t use.”

Frazier explained why he liked the chalk festival.

“I like being outside, seeing what students are doing, I like that the whole school gets to see what we do,” he said.

“And just the whole vibe of the event is nice, it’s got a very spring-time happy feeling to it,” Frazier said.

Background photo credit: Gabrialla Cockerell/ The Foothill Dragon Press

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