Okay so maybe this is not completely effective, I wanted to show how I dirty I got.  You tend to get dirty doing side walk chalk drawing.  I ran into a blond woman yesterday with a fancy dress on and perfectly clean children, who was staring at me with absolute disgust.  I guess I am not sure why.  I don't know why she would come to an event like this though and expect to be met by perfectly clean artists.

This is mine from Eau Claire Chalkfest

I went with moths.  One is an Io moth, one is a Polyphemus, the other is a Cecropia silk moth.  They are all native to WI.  From the picture I saw they do actually look quite big, about hand size.  Early in the day I had some jerks.  It kind of seemed like I could tell the difference between day shift oriented people and more night shift people.  Little kids unanimously thought they were butterflys, and they tend to be more day shift people.  Later in the afternoon people got nicer and more people were figuring out they were moths.  The things that made it all worth while for me were an old woman who stopped and said she liked my moths, and she wanted to know where I was from.  I told her La Crosse, and she thanked me for coming all that way to draw.  Another guy stopped and said something latinish at me, I said huh, he said the polyphemuspolyphemus.  He was givinge the scientific name.  The third guy told me that anyone else would do butterflys, and he said kudos for going off the deep end and doing moths.

My favorites done by others at Chalkfest

Prelude to Eau Claire Chalkfest

So the thing to understand here is that I work nights, and I don't get done until 12:30 am.  Typically I go to bed at 4 am; this is wired into me so I have a hard time getting to sleep before 4 am.  So the deal last Chalkfest was get done with work at 12:30 am, go home get to sleep around 4am, then get up around 5:30am to make sure I am in Eau Claire for the 8 am start time.  This year was going to be different I took the day before off, and the plan was to go up Friday and camp out that night.  The logic being even if I couldn't get to sleep until late at least I wouldn't have to get up quite so early.                                                           Another thing to understand is that last weekend it had been discovered theives in CA and KS had been using my debit card number, so I didn't have my new card yet.                                                            So I call the campgrounds where I am hoping to stay before I leave, and they say they have some spots available, but it is first come first serve.  So I get up there, and I am told they just gave the last campsite to the older couple, who were in front of me and that I was out of luck unless I had reserved.  So I decide to try to find a hotel.  I have 95 cash and my checkbook.  First hotel refuses to take a check, so I go to a second and they are fully booked.  As I am leaving that hotel I hear a screeching noise and smoke is coming out from under the hood of my car.  So I pull over to the side and turn off my car.  I pop the hood to see if it is on fire and to try to see if I can tell where the smoke is coming from.  Then I call Dad because I haven't the foggiest what I'm doing.  Dad has me check for water and condensation thinking maybe I bust like a water hose, and that the smoke was actually steam.  I don't see anything like that, and I am getting pretty freaked out.  So Dad volunteers to make the three hour drive up to see if he can figure it out.                                                    So I am waiting.  I did walk around a bit.  Finally I get my camp chair out and am sitting by the car (it was really hot in the car).  The guy who's house I am parked by gets curious why I am sitting out there and comes out to talk to me.  I tell him what had happened with the car, so he offers to take a look.  He looks it over and says the water stuff all looked fine and that he isn't sure what is wrong, but he doesn't think it will be an easy fix.  The guy is super nice and tells me it is good I couldn't get a room at that hotel because they have bed bugs there, and that it is a pretty nasty place.  He tells me if I want to sit in his yard in his yard in the shade while I wait for my Dad that is okay.  He even offers me pop.  So Dad gets there and I tell him what that guy had said.  Dad looks those things over too and concurs and he says well it could be the timing chain, which would be incredibly bad.  Dad had told me before this that it is important to know in older vehicles when the manufacturers recommend changing it (based on the odometer) because if it goes bad it will basically destroy the engine.  Anyways so Dad decides to check out the timing belt (something different) first.  He notices a number written on the case and he says he thinks that is when it was changed, so he takes it off just to see and says it looks fine.  It is getting kind of late so we decide to track down a hotel.  Dad says it could also be something with the air conditioner, but he is also talking about maybe getting a U haul thing and towing it back to his place to work on.      So next day I have him drop me off at Chalkfest and I give him my phone (my Dad doesn't have a cell phone)  My logic being that if he needed to look up info on the car or track down a part store my phone could be a resource for him.  So about noon Dad shows up at Chalkfest all smiles, and he says it was an easy fix.  A belt that powered the air conditioner was malfunctioning, so since the air conditioner doesn't work anyways he just cut it off.  No more screeching no more smoking, and he said I should get better gas mileage now.  Dad really saved my bacon.

Tidal whirlpool on the Mississippi

I went out and drew for fu

n today, although it was kind of a frustrating day as an artist, it seemed like no one was figuring out what it was.  Some of the weirdest guesses were a face, and a fern.  One lady had a little boy with her after I said it was a tidal whirlpool the boy said that makes sense with the river right there.  The lady then told him he didn't understand that it wasn't about the water it was a soul portal.  I guess I didn't understand either.  Oh and my Mom went with infected dog bite for what it looked like to her.