Costa Mesa’s chalk-full of art

Marisa O’Neil

Like a giant, multi-colored hopscotch course, chalk squares filled

the blacktop at Balearic Park Saturday afternoon.

But little feet stayed well outside these squares. Instead, the

blocks filled with colorful drawings at Costa Mesa’s first-annual

chalk art festival, organized by the city’s Cultural Arts Committee

and Parks and Recreation Department.

Committee chair Donna Robb, an artist who has participated in

other sidewalk art events, decided to bring the medium to Costa Mesa.

She’s hoping to expand the event next year.

“I figured if Costa Mesa is the ‘City of the Arts,’ we should have

one,” Robb said of the festival.

Adults had roughly 4-foot squares to work with and children had

their own area with smaller blacktop canvases. Members of the

Automatic Musical Instruments Collectors Assn. provided peppy,

carnival-like music with antique music boxes.

Professional artist Phil Roberts, from Corona del Mar, replicated

“Mother and Child With Cherries,” a 19th-century painting by Lord

Frederic Leighton. He updated the painting with his own wife and

daughter’s faces on the figures.

Roberts, who illustrates movie posters for a living, has dabbled

in sidewalk art festivals for the past 15 years. His drawing on

Saturday looked fresh off a museum canvas, not a playground

basketball court.

“It’s inspiring for the kids to see,” Roberts said of drawing at

the festival. “All the kids come up and go: ‘Oh, really! That’s what

I could do!”

Lots of children got the artistic bug on Saturday, Costa Mesa

recreation manager Jana Ransom said.

“We started out with a couple squares,” she said. “But kids kept

coming and drew more on their own.”

Hunter Holden, 5, drew a sun, cloud and trees in his square. He

enlisted the help of his mother, Karrie Holden, to draw some

butterflies and flowers.

The former Costa Mesa residents drove from Irvine for the event.

“There’s not enough art in classrooms anymore,” Karrie Holden

said. “I want him to see how beautiful things can be.”

At the bottom of his sunny scene, Holden sketched a purple house

-- with orange flames coming out of its windows.

“It’s a house full of fire,” he said with satisfaction.

A fireman drawn on the other side of the blacktop would have been

of little use to douse Holden’s pastel flames. A stick-figure drawing

depicted a fireman attempting to put out a burning candle atop a

birthday cake with a hose.

Except, in the drawing, the water was spraying back in the

fireman’s face. Underneath, in a childlike scrawl with some letters

backward, it read “CMFD,” for Cosa Mesa Fire Department.

Next to the square was a careful drawing of a muscle-bound

superhero from the upcoming film “The Incredibles” flying through the

air. Members of the Costa Mesa Police Department drew that one, and

in a little friendly competition, had drawn the soggy fireman when

members of the department didn’t make it to the event.

“Hey, it’s to encourage more participation for next year,” Costa

Mesa Police Sgt. Marty Carver said with a laugh.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at [email protected].