10/12/2019

Ahoy-hoy everyone!

Once a year, the downtown streets of San Antonio close down so that the city can come together and draw in the streets. How fun is that?!

A local art company called Artpace puts together this wonderful day of freestyle art, music, and food every year. This year, it’s 16th year, the weather was much cooler thanks to a cool front that happened to come just in time for the festival. But no worries, a good pair of sweatpants, a jacket, and a beanie will take care of that. Besides, no nice clothes necessary if you’re really going to enjoy yourself here.

This year’s theme was “Sustainability” and that was evident in all the drawings we saw. Most local schools and colleges participate and have sections that are reserved just for them.

There’s also featured local artists that get their own special spots and you get to observe them making their creations.

While walking towards the center, we saw a full size piano set up in front of the Alamo Music Store and saw children playing that put everyone to shame.

The first stop to make when coming here is the Artpace tent where you can get a map of what is offered in the festival along with official merch and free chalk to use.

We also saw this nifty portrait being made right in front of us.

We made our way to the food truck area, which was what is usually a parking lot but they transformed it into a little food park. Astroturf and picnic tables in the center with a temporary stage for local bands.

And of course, food! There was Auntie Anne’s pretzels, barbecue, lemonade (I think it was too cold for it to have good business), and burgers. We chose the Uncle Danny’s Backyard Barbecue truck and got a burger, brisket taco, and these awesome brisket nachos. The brisket had just enough spice to be tangy but not to where you were coughing.

And if you do find yourself coughing, no worries: San Antonio Water System gave away these free water bottles that you could refill to your heart’s content at a huge container filled with cold water called the “water monster”.

Now that our bellies were full, it was time to hit the streets to play! As this is not my first time coming, I brought my own chalk and pastels. Pro-tip: the best one to buy is the Crayola 48 in a box chalk with a squared off shape so they don’t roll away from you!

We decided to create a piece with the theme of sustainability in mind and drew the earth with the flaming sun behind it. First you layer the base colors, then you add the lighter and darker colors to add depth to your work; finally, add the highlights to the areas to make them stand out.

Use your fingers to do lots of blending in the work; the sun has 4 different colors.

It’s fun to sit in the street and feel like a 5 year old again and get chalk all over your clothes and face!

Afterwards, it was time to clean up. Secret: the Hotel Valencia, on the corner of Houston and St. Mary’s St., lets you walk right inside. This is where we used the restroom and checked out the cool decor. There’s a cool bar and patio here too by the way, but with kiddos with me, I couldn’t check it out right then and there).

Back out on the street and the kiddos wanted Starbucks that is right across the street, where I saw this funny snack:

A croissant and 2 mocha cookie crumble frappuchinos later, and they were ready to keep checking out more work.

This place was cleverly called Chalkakahn, where they did a spiral-graph style artwork made with chalk of course.

In front of the Majestic Theater was a group of guys playing freestyle music with a DJ and inviting anyone who wanted to come up and dance to not be shy and just do it! There were also drums made of trash cans that kids were just banging away on and the music was great if you’re a 90’s music lover (hello Boyz II Men and other old school hip hop)!

Everyone was just drawing whatever they felt like:

Some art work promoted messages:

Or themselves:

More wonderful artwork to be seen:

Walking back we saw a solar mural artwork in Spanish for the butterfly:

And lastly, a nice picture on this huge picture frame to end the day!

I highly recommend this festival for anyone who has kids, who doesn’t have kids, who loves art, dancing, music, and just want to try making their own creations without judgement.

Support local art!