Chor Boogie

After my small section of Chalk Artist ToMo, I wanted to briefly look at the work of Chor Boogie. A San Francisco based graffiti artist. You can check out his website at www.chorboogie.com . While he’s not a chalk artist, I meet Chor Boogie at the Sarasota Chalk Festival in 2011,see http://www.chalkfestival.com/?s=chor&x=0&y=0

Chor was participating in the going vertical section as a graffiti artist. His energy and enthusiasm was amazing. He work a number of large works though-out the festival and would work all day and night. The standard of graffiti at the festival was incredible and Chor certainly help maintain this standard. I have some photos of his work here, from the festival. To see more check out his website, you wont be disappointed.

Pictured in wonderful San Diego chalk Artist, Cecelia Linayao, Chor Boogie and myself (November 2011)

ToMo

I haven’t done in Chalk work a recently, as I have been too busy working on publishing work. I thought it might be interesting to suggest some other chalk artists for you to look at. I thought I would start with an amazing artist who I meet in Florida last year.

It’s Tomoteru Saito, or ToMo. His websaite is http://tomoteru.web.fc2.com and he can be found on facebook at http://facebook.com/tomoteru.saito .

I’ve taken the following information about ToMo from his website.

Born in Osaka, Japan.
Mostly working on the streets in Europe.

Formerly, Tomo worked as an architect in Tokyo.
Tomo has been awarded top prizes at the International Street Painting Festival in Grazie di Curtatone, Italy, including 1st place among Maestri Madonnari (master street painters) in 2000 and 2001.
Tomo participates in street painting festivals throughout Europe, the U.S., Mexico, Hong Kong and Japan.

I have also included some images of ToMos work from the 2011 Sarasota Chalk Festival in Florida.

I thought I would start with Tomo as he is simply amazing. Not only does he create masterpieces in chalk he can also speech 3 languages (that I know of). His work is stunning, you can see from the images that are attached that he has a great command of light and colour in his work.

I just hope that if you like ToMos work you will go and look at his website. If you are lucky enough to see ToMo drawing on the street, you stop and watch him work.

Chalk

The last thing that I wish to post on the Sarasota Chalk Festival this year is thanks to the Organisers and volunteers, in particular Denise Kowal (see http://www.ChalkFestival.com for more information on the Festival). Without their drive and vision the event would never have been held.
I would like to thank Bernadette Ward of ColorFin for providing me the wonderful PanPastels to use throughout the festival (see PanPastel.com or http://facebook.com/panpastel for more details).
I would also like to thank Jack Borland of Art Spectrum for providing me with some of their fantastic Australian soft pastels (see http://www.artspectrum.com.au/soft_pastles.html of more information).
Lastly I would like to thank my fellow artist for the warm welcome that I received and the openness to that they have in sharing their skills in this art form.

Sarasota

The Sarasota Chalk Festival is over. I’m back in Australia and I have started to sort through some of my photos. I have attached some images here of the ‘Dragon King’ image that I created, in various stages of development. For more images from the festival visit my chalk flowers blog (http://chalkflowers.blogspot.com/ ).
For the information of anyone interested in chalk drawings, this image was created using PanPastels and Art Spectrum soft pastels. It is 10 foot by 11 foot and took 3 days to draw. The image contains NO black line work. All of the line work is the product of negative space (the road surface showing through).
The Lego Terracotta Warriors, Sarasota Chalk Festival 2011, Leon Keer, see the work of Ego Leonard
Ruben Poncia, Peter Westerlink and Remko Van Schaik from the Netherlands
http://www.st-artgallery.com/art/measure-and-weight.html
The people’s choice award went to Cuong Nguyen, which is understandable if you have ever seen this man’s incredible drawing skills, also receiving medals in recognition of the quality of their work. These were not ranked and as my name appears among some of the best street chalk artist in the world, I am humbled to be on the list;
Chalk Artist
Tony Cuboliquido
Tomoteru Saito
Lorelle Miller
Eduardo Relero
Leon Keer
Julie Kurk-Purcell
Joel Yau
Vera Bugatti
Juandrés Vera
Valentina Sforzini
Craig Thomas
Cuong Nguyen
Julio César Jiménez
Sharyn Chan Namnath
Carolyn Schultz
Gregor Wosik
Michael Kirby - Opera
Kumpa Tawornprom
Tony Flowers
Ketty Grossi
Cathy Gallatin
Ruben Martinez

Graffiti
MTO (Going Vertical)
ChorBoogie (Going Vertical)
Kanos, Astro and Katre (Going Vertical)
Kobra, Kobra (Going Vertical)
Students:
Korry LaCalamito
Tai Ngo
Romana Tomasovic
Trishia Armstrong (working with Kurt Wenner)
I have attached some images of the Festival and a couple of the works that I thought people would enjoy seeing in various stages.

Unfortunately there are too many exceptional images created that I have photos of to include in this blog.

Sarasota

I have made a start on my drawing at the festival. Im using a Pan Pastel applied with the litest of touch on a small sponge. I had originally intend to only use these pastel on small sections. But the coverage and brightness of the colour is so go that I'm using the Pan Pastels for the whole 10 x 12 foot drawing.

Sarasota

I've been in Sarasota Florida for the last few days now. The artist working on larger works, graffiti and murals have already started. The rest of us start tomorrow morning. I will provide some updates through out the festival, but leave most photographers up dates until I return to Australia.
The attached photo is of one of my practice drawings for my larger work tomorrow.

America

I am heading off on Wednesday (26th) to America for this year’s Sarasota Chalk Festival in Florida. The Sarasota Chalk Festival became the first international street painting festival in the United States last year and is now considered one of the most important international contemporary festivals in the world (http://www.chalkfestival.com/).
There will be 250 artist expected to participate in this year’s festival, 50 will be international visitors to America from Mexico, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Argentina, Korea and Canada. I will be the only Australian artist attending this year.
I am very excited about the festival and glad that I have made it so far with my chalk work. Especially considering that I first became interested in working in chalk almost by accident (about 18months ago an opportunity arose to create artworks on the blackboard at my local coffee shop, ’Tasmanian Coffee Roaster’)” .
The theme of the festival is ‘Pavement Art through the Ages’ tracing the art form from its thinly documented roots to today’s current contemporary movements. I will be creating a 12 x 12 foot image on South Pineapple Ave, based on a the Japanese traditional story of the Dragon King.
I will be attending some instructional classes on street painting techniques from the internationally renowned artist Kurt Wenner (http://www.kurtwenner.com/street.htm), the innovator of 3D pavement art.
Before I head to Florida, I will spend a few days in New York, where I will attend the 125th Birthday of the Statue of Liberty. It should be heaps of fun.