Category — Chalk Art

So this upcoming weekend I will be appearing at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, Washington. This is my first, and hopefully not last, appearance at Penny Arcade and I am greatly looking forward to hanging out at a convention with such a different vibe to it. Video games only get minor attention at most of my shows, but here it is front and center am I am really excited. There are sure to be amazing companies with killer games and there is quite the musical line up including Jonathan Coulton whom I highly suggest you check out for yourselves.

The fine folks over at Wizard have re-branded several of their conventions, and the formerly-known Wizard World Chicago is now the Chicago Comic Con. My very first convention appearance EVER was at Wizard World’s 10th Anniversary Chicago Convention in the summer of 2006. The 2009 Chicago Comic Con marked my 4th Chicago art appearance, and my 10th show with Wizard over all.

With Wizard World Chicago (now re-branded as the Chicago Comic Con) fast approaching, I thought I might take a few moments to catch up on some old posts regarding chalk art murals I made at previous Chicago Conventions. Two years ago I was asked to make two murals in the four day span of the show, one as an outdoor chalk mural on pavement, the other as indoor chalk art on paper at a booth on the show floor.

This past weekend was the 16th annual Otakon at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore Maryland. This was my second time creating chalk art for the show and would prove to be another killer piece that would challenge my patience and my ability to keep my fingers from being worn down to the bone. My first appearance at Otakon was in 2008, where I created a 15th Anniversary Otakon Chalk Art Mural, and I was determined to make this one even better.

This past weekend I was very happy to be appearing at the Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 Convention. This was my third time appearing at their Philadelphia show, and my 9th appearance overall with their tour! Philly has always held a special place in my memories because it was where I was first noticed as an illustrator and chalk artist, and it was where this whole chapter of my artistic career got started back in 2006.

Sometimes I am asked to appear as a chalk artist at giant conventions like the New York Comic Con or the Otakon in Baltimore. But I also really enjoy making appearances at smaller, local events. I was recently asked to come to an elementary school art show and make a chalk art drawing. I would work on it over the course of about 2 and a half hours for the kids to watch while they looked at the rest of the show. The idea is that an artist showing their work in progress will inspire the kids to make more art themselves, and maybe try a different style then they normally might have otherwise.

In the time I have been known as a chalk artist, I have almost exclusively made recreations of comic book art in my chalk murals. I have appeared at comic conventions and reproduced famous artists work as close to line-by-line accurate as I can make it. However, like most everyone else, I receive a lot of e-mails showing me those 3D optical illusion chalk drawings that have become famous in the past few years.

I was asked back this year to make another chalk art mural at the Earth Fest celebration of Earth Day. Once again I found myself fighting to try and “force” a comic book character into the street art idea. And again, I rejected a number of them pretty quick.

In the summer of 2008 I attended Wizard World Chicago, this was my third appearance in Chicago for their shows and I wanted to make something really cool. Just a few months earlier I had met Greg Horn, a phenomenal illustrator and painter who has done amazing work for Marvel Comics including covers for She-Hulk and Ms Marvel. Yeah, he draws some pretty knock out women. After Greg and I talked we thought that it would be great if I recreated one of his pieces of art.

I will be attending Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 this June, which will be my 3rd Philadelphia convention in a row and my 9th overall with the Wizard World Tours. Wizard gave me my first break as a comic book chalk artist in the Summer of 2006, and I am forever grateful for that. The Wizard Conventions are always amazingly fun even though I spend most of the time on the concrete floor working on my illustration. With that in mind, I wanted to post about the piece I made for the 2008 Wizard Philly Convention, a J.G. Jones original drawing of the big three from DC Comics; Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman.