CORE art students decorate our sidewalk with chalk art projects commemorating Chalktober. As advisor Beth Mooney tells it, “Chalktober” began as a class assignment for CORE’s Studio Arts class, but quickly grew into a beautiful part of our campus culture. This year, as a precursor to the assignment, Ms. Mooney had students study three-dimensional art techniques, optical illusions, and the work of chalk street artist David Zinn. Students then worked in teams to produce chalk art pieces to share with other students around campus.

Students Ellie Feather, Maggie Boian, and Lola Ciyufo worked on a piece featuring two potted sunflowers in love.. They got the idea from an assignment at the beginning of the year in which they passed a paper between the three of them, and each person sketched for two minutes, building upon each other’s ideas. 

“My favorite part about this project was seeing our initial idea come to life on a bigger scale,” Maggie said. “When we first drew that little doodle, we all really loved it, but I never thought it would someday be drawn in color to make our campus more beautiful.”

 According to Ellie, the most challenging part was getting the chalk color to appear vibrant, without the concrete color interfering and showing through. “It became very messy.” Ellie emphasized  that it turned out as well as it did because of the full group’s effort.

Gallery • 10 Photos

Beth Mooney

Students work on Spider Art Project

All of the artists involved came up with designs reflecting realistic qualities and optical illusions. Students started these projects on Oct. 1st, and finished weeks later. Challenges were faced when rain washed away art pieces in progress, and when the hues of concrete just wouldn’t budge, but CORE’s artists persevered, resulting in the creative images at present.