Berkeley Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival 2014

UPDATE: Ava's artwork received an honorable mention from the judges! Go Ava!

Yesterday the 18th Annual Chocolate and Chalk Art Festival was held in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto neighbourhood. Every year around the start of June Shattuck Ave becomes alive with colour as festival goers decorate the sidewalks with chalk artworks.  

Like last year Ava was excited to take part and couldn't wait to get started creating her chalk art master piece on the sidewalk. This time Ava worked out in advance what she would like to draw: a mermaid and various aquatic creatures swimming in the sea. Lola was also keen to take part and decided that she would draw a rainbow and a ring. Or, as it turned out, get Daddy to draw a rainbow and a ring!

This year we claimed a prime space in front of local supermarket Andronico's. Ava was very specific about where she wanted to draw her artwork. It needed to be a highly visible yet out of the way spot where pedestrians were less likely to step on it. It also needed to be a spot with a red curb. Last year Ava's artwork was out of the way of most pedestrian traffic, however, as it was alongside street parking people kept getting out of cars and stepping directly onto her creation. This time around we found a good sized space in a mail zone. The mail box will block pedestrians from walking on it and the only car parking nearby will be the mail van once a day. Perfect!

While Ava got started on her underwater scene Lola attempted to make a rainbow. I say "attempted" as she didn't get very far! On discovering that the sidewalk isn't quite as smooth to draw on as paper, Lola pretty quickly gave up and insisted that Daddy draw her picture for her instead. 

Ava worked very hard on her drawing and, while I may be a little biased, I think it turned out fantastic. Lola, however, was not happy at all with the art she was directing Daddy to draw and had a bit of a tantrum. She calmed down when I suggested that we trace around her body and then add features to it. She decided to only add a face and hair to her body outline and then laid down to hold hands with it!

With the girls' masterpieces finished we head off to have a look at the other drawings. Here's a look at some of the colour brightening the sidewalks.

There are cash prizes on offer for the three best artworks plus gift vouchers for runners up. Judges will be selecting the winners over the next few days. There is not a separate children's category for the competition but Ava is keeping her fingers crossed that her piece receives a nod from the judges. We'll have to wait and see.