artwork inspired by the children's book CHALK

In the "Once Upon a Time" spring break camp, we read the children's book, Chalk.

Well, we discussed the children's book Chalk because I had the entire day planned but when I arrived at the camp site there was no book. What could of been a less than ideal situation turned out to be quite wonderful as I began to explain the premise of the book and the children all began to excitedly share the plot with the group. Since the book was wordless, the children sharing the story orally became quite a lovely little moment.

In the story some children find a pail of magic sidewalk chalk and everything they draw becomes real. It is a rainy day, so they draw the sun and they continuing to draw things that come to life....including dinosaurs.

Not such a great decision and things go awry until one child draws the rain and washes away all the sidewalk chalk and life goes back to normal.

Cue the next scramble on my part. I had planned to have the children go outside with our own magic pail of sidewalk chalk to do a collaborative drawing. Unfortunately it was pouring rain and although I had high hopes of bringing the idea of magic sidewalk chalk to life, I was pretty certain I could not turn the rain to sun with a simple drawing. And so I took a large roll of colored paper and while the campers watched gave it a kick and let it roll from one side of the floor to the other.

And thanks to the vivid imagination of children, we all suspended reality and accepted the paper as a sidewalk. Then they eagerly grabbed a magic sidewalk chalk and began to create images in hopes of them coming alive.

When they were done, I told them all to pick an image they favored and it did not have to be one they drew.

Then using watercolor paper, permanent black marker and liquid watercolors, campers drew parts of their drawings on the paper, painted them and cut them out. We then put the parts together with brass fasteners and all the children had a moving, "living" creature created from the original drawings made from the magic sidewalk chalk.

They loved them.

One of the five year olds loved his so much I caught him several times during the rest of the week quietly playing with his artwork, moving the legs and heads of his turtle.

Not quite alive, but with the marvelous and vivid imagination of the children attending the camp became living creatures magically brought to life with sidewalk chalk.

Brought to life with the same exuberance they were able to bring the nonexistent book to make it a magical day of camp.