3-D Chalk Art Show, Atlantic City

We went to this fascinating show of street art today in Atlantic City. I’ve seen this kind of work in photos, but never in real life, and while I had some idea of how it’s done, I wanted to experience it in person. Ellen and I both found it wonderful. I’ve tried to name the artists, but have missed a few.

Here’s the one I think we liked best, by Sharyn Namnath. From the designated correct photo spot, it looks as if the dice, place markers, houses and hotels and Mr. Money are rising up from the street.

From the side the distortion is obvious and striking. How do they figure this stuff out? I think it’s partly experience and practice, partly working things out beforehand on paper or computer.

The view from the top, or the completely wrong side, is even more mind bending. The farther the objects extend up from the apparent surface, and the deeper they are in the image, the larger and longer they have to be drawn.

The detail on the art can be quite impressive, too.

Here are some cool dinos emerging from the road by Tracy Lee Stum. Many of the artists used poster paint as well as chalk to cover the surface better and give brighter colors, this one seems to be mostly chalk.

This train was quite impressive…

…and barely made any sense from the side.

Can you guess what this will be?

Frog and fly, and even more cool that it rises up off the road surface completely. By Alex Maksiov.

Another creepy one by Alex Maksiov.

Gary Palmer at work on his art. Most of the artists were there working, though they were supposed to be finished yesterday. The show will run through tomorrow, but it might rain then. They were very lucky to have a dry week!

Art by Julio Jimenez. I wasn’t standing close enough to this one.

Looks like a robot…

Yup, it’s Rock-’em Sock-em Robots by Chris Carlson. Notice how he’s recessed the boxing ring into the road. Most of the artists had drawn footprints where one was supposed to stand to get the perfect photo, and people lined up at each of these spots.

Artist Limnesh Augustine had taken a much different approach. In the center is some art painted on plastic blocks with an unusual design.

The blocks are covered with small pyramids. The artist painted the image above on the sides of the pyramids all facing one direction, then added more art around that on the street.

From another side, a different painting on another side of the pyramids revealed Einstein…

…and from a third angle, his famous equation. Very tricky work, and he could save the central art tiles for display at other shows.

These undersea creatures are by Rod Tryon.

In this side detail you can see that only the three small shells are real.

Tony Camarrano made the road into a hole in an icy sea, with gulls.

This cool fantasy scene is by Michael Las Casas.

Here he is adding some edge lines with a piece of chalk on a long stick, pretty clever tool. Other tools I noticed were tape and string to mark perspective lines.

Anamorphic Art is what they call this type of 3-D image, and it’s pretty amazing. You can find videos of some of these artists working on YouTube. Really enjoyed seeing it!