I’ve loved the work of painter Marko Djurdjevic even before I knew who he actually was. I’d seen Marvel Comics characters painted with incredible style and power, but never caught the name of the artist. It was later that I not only learned who he was, but that I had been seeing his stuff for a long time on one of the art forums I am a member of, conceptart.org (I even have this in my blogroll.) The guy is absolutely amazing and puts pretty much the rest of us to shame. I met Marko at the Wizard World convention in Dallas in 2007, he’s also a really nice guy to boot!

I got the opportunity to make a chalk art mural at an art festival in the town of Windsor, New York. I chose a painting of the comic character Thor by Marko because it was was amazing, but also because it was deceptively simple (just one character) and I thought I could complete it in the short span of time I had. As a chalk artist, you always have to weight the complexity of the art you want to create with the realistic time limitations you are given.

The day was tough from start to not-so-happy finish. It had rained the night before, and the wet pavement slowed me down a lot. I spent a large chunk of time just trying to dry my work space. I was also forced to abandon my normal top-to-bottom work flow, and color parts of the mural that were dry first. This meant that legs got done before I worked on the face.

Irony struck mid-afternoon when a summer shower came through the area, and the God of Thunder became my first official chalk art mural to be lost to rain. Below are some photos of the progress, and the final image of what was left after about 30 seconds of rain. Now I know why so many of these are made in sunny Southern California. Enjoy!