There are two basic forms of chalk art. The first is called Madonnari, this is the traditional form of street painting that began in Italy probably in the 16th century. This is a non-distorted form of art where you attempt to recreate a painting, often one of the renaissance masters and usually with religious themes, as accurately as possible. The other is 3D Street Painting which is a more recent form of the art and uses forced perspective to create the illusion of a 3D object or landscape on the flat pavement (when viewed from a specific angle).

I fall in between the two forms of street art, where I attempt the non-distorted approach and try to recreate the original art line by line, but I use modern imagery (almost exclusively super heroes) and avoid the traditional themes. I have seen tons of those 3D Street Art murals and optical illusion chalk drawings, and I am often asked at shows if I am “that guy”, but hadn’t actually tried one myself until a few years ago.

Below is a gallery of the attempt. I had only three hours to make this at an art walk in upstate New York and was learning as I went, so I aimed for a simple “hole in the ground” effect. In the end, I was happy with the result… and at EVERY show people always tell me how the images of this piece are their favorite. I am glad people get such a kick out of it, but I often think to myself that I wish they could appreciate the 30-hour-long pieces as much as the 3-hour piece. Oh well, enjoy the images.