Story Photos
 Kalama residents Jacob Posey, 9, bottom, and his sister Emily, 11, work on artist Brian Major's paint-by-number mural of Sasquatch at the Longview Saturday Market. Miranda Schneider, 10, of Hillsboro, Ore., at the top right, colors the sun. Greg Ebersole / The Daily News
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Chalk stays dry; Sasquatch shows
Sunday, July 13, 2008 9:45 PM PDT
By Amy M.E. Fischer
Printable version
E-mail this articleLast summer, only halfway finished with his stained-glass themed sidewalk chalk mural in downtown Longview, Brian Major watched helplessly as a downpour washed his creation away.
Bystanders threw towels over the piece, entitled "From the Mountains to the Sea," but within minutes it was just a swirl of color, and then it was gone.
The 45-year-old artist from Blaine, Wash., returned Saturday to draw a mural for the Longview Saturday Market — and this time, the weather held up.
By 11 a.m., Major's 20-foot-by-12-foot depiction of the legendary Sasquatch in the Pacific Northwest wilderness was alive with color. Children clutching fat chunks of chalk squatted on the pavement at Broadway and Commerce Avenue to fill in the mural sections, which Major numbered to match the bins of chalk set up on a table.
He spent an hour and a half Friday night drawing the outlines of the piece, said Major, who specializes in painting oil portraits in the European Old World style but enjoys spreading his love of art to the public with sidewalk chalk drawings.
"Isn't that the beauty of chalk? Look how vibrant it is," said Major, grinning as he watched the kids work. "It's very inspirational to them. ... You can see it in their eyes, can't you?"
On the sidewalks nearby, more than 30 individuals and teams drew chalk art of their own in 4-by-4-foot sections for the Saturday Market's "Chalk Walk of the Town" sidewalk art competition. The theme was "Where did you see Sasquatch?"
Entries ranged from whimsical to scary, portraying Bigfoot in New York City, Bigfoot at Mount St. Helens, Bigfoot at The Brit's restaurant, and just Bigfoot's leg descending a beanstalk (the caption explained it was "Jack's beanstock").
Back at Major's mural, Emily Posey, 11, of Kalama, stood up with her blue chalk and announced that the sky was finished. Major, wearing shorts and knee pads, handed her a piece of black chalk and showed her how to trace around the details and smudge the line with one finger.
Emily, who wants to be an artist when she grows up, came to the Saturday Market planning to draw a panel for the sidewalk art competition. She didn't know about Major's interactive "paint-by-number" mural beforehand, she said.
"I thought it was pretty amazing and pretty cool," said Emily, a soon-to-be sixth-grader who enjoys drawing landscapes and animals. "Brian taught me you can use different shades of colors-more than two. You can use as many as you'd like."
Miranda Schneider, 10, of Hillsboro, Ore., used yellow and orange chalks to color the sun in the upper portion of the mural. Normally, she doesn't draw much, and she didn't think she'd want to join in on the Sasquatch mural, said Miranda, who came to the Saturday Market with her grandmother, Dorothy Schneider of Rainier.
When Miranda saw the mural, she changed her mind.
"It looked really good, and I just wanted to help," she said, adding that the experience makes her want to do more art.
The sight of Sasquatch downtown stopped passersby in their tracks, some of whom appeared to have no idea why clumps of people were crouched on the ground.
"Oh, wow. That's pretty cool," said a cyclist, dismounting to snap a picture with his camera phone.
The longer the kids colored, the more colored they got. One toddler girl rolled around on the sky portion of the mural until her legs, arms, diaper and face was smeared with light blue chalk. Emily's brother, 9-year-old Jacob Posey, had brown chalk caked on his bare feet, jeans, arms and neck.
"He's so dirty," laughed his mother, Deedee Posey. "I think it's really neat because we usually have to go to the Portland Saturday Market to get something like this. It's nice to get something closer to home."
Throughout the morning, Major documented the mural's progress with dozens of photographs. At the end, he said, it can be tough to walk away, knowing the creation will be dissolved by rain or worn away by feet.
"It's a little bit disheartening," he said. "You feel it. But the photographs are what makes it real later on."
To check out Brian Major's work, visit his Web site at www.majorarts.com
Buford McGee wrote on Jul 13, 2008 10:25 AM:
Longview Straight Guy wrote on Jul 13, 2008 11:51 AM:
Louie wrote on Jul 13, 2008 12:29 PM:
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