Students 'chalk the walk' with Monet paintings

Cally Orme, 17, and Catherine Johnson, 18, discovered there's a lot more work involved in a Claude Monet painting than they ever thought.

After drawing their own rendition of Monet's "Poppyfield" during their school's annual Chalk the Walk competition, the two friends gained a new level of respect for Monet.

"(His paintings) look like splotches, but they're really images," Orme said.

Monet's technique was difficult to replicate, Johnson said.

"You don't realize how many colors there are and how they weave together," she said.

Orme and Johnson participated in Alta High School's annual Chalk the Walk competition May 22. Thirteen teams of students competed to replicate famous works of art with chalk. Each team of two students chose a reference image within the theme Monet's Garden and were assigned a sidewalk square in front of the school.

Alta art teacher Katie Campbell said students anticipate the event all year. "It gets the artwork out where the entire school can appreciate and see it."

Working with chalk allowed the students to reproduce the work on a larger scale than they could have otherwise and also presented challenges because students aren't as comfortable with it, Campbell said.

"(Chalk is) different than anything I've ever worked with in the art department before," said Neal Smith, 16.

Samantha Brennan, 15, said chalk wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. For her the difficulty came in getting the right blend of colors.

Regan Evans, 18, and Cory Bowcut, 18, both seniors, said they chose "Le dejeuner" as their painting because they wanted some variety.

"Everybody else was doing (a painting) with garden scenery," Evans said. "We wanted to do something with people and a wider color range in it."

Matt Masters, 18, also a senior, liked trying Monet's technique while drawing his rendition of "Springtime."

"It's fun to experience someone else's ways of drawing and duplicate their techniques," he said. "I like working in a different way than I've ever done before."

Anthony Thorup, 16, agreed. "When you try it yourself, it's like 'Wow — it's amazing how this technique works,"' he said. The winners were: first place, Matt Masters and Kevin Larsen with "Springtime"; second place, Kaely Burke and Chelsea Neider with "Flowering Arches"; and third place, Catherine Johnson and Cally Orme with "Poppyfield."

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