Published: October 14, 2009 06:48 am      

Chalk art drawing contest coming up

Art students from Northwest Oklahoma will use their talent decorating the sidewalks on Main Street for a ‘Happy Halloween’ during the annual chalk art drawing contest.

Over 100 students from Woodward, Mooreland, Turpin, Seiling, Alva and possibly other schools will meet downtown on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. for the all-day festival and contest. The public is invited to watch the students at work.

“The theme this year is ‘Happy Halloween.’ We’re the decorations for the upcoming Main Street activities. There will be no gory or scary stuff just decorative fun things,” said Woodward High School art teacher Shelly Cook.

Hundreds of dollars will be given to the first, second and third place winners. Cook said the prize money and chalk was made available by a grant from the Woodward Tourism and Convention Bureau.

The chalk art contest is in its sixth year. It started in 2001 as a patriotic memorial to the nation following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist bombings.

Other themes have included ‘Master Artists, Oklahoma Centennial and one that was called My Home Town,” Cook said.

Students usually work in groups of three or four to decorate an area about three-feet by three-feet. Cook said,

“They’ll do a drawing before hand and usually experiment with color, then they usually free-hand their design on the sidewalk with white chalk and color them in.”

She added, “The kids like just being downtown that day. Usually there’s a lot going on and people walking around.

“I think they like bundling up and going to the stores around to get coffee, and they love people who come by and they can show off their work.”