ARTISTS CHALK IT UP TO EXPERIENCE COLORFUL YETSHORT-LIVED PASTELS SHOW ZEST, SPIRIT OF THEMOMENT.

Byline: Andy Samuelson Staff Writer

PASADENA - Their skin and clothes smudged with chalk, five friends in their 20s colored a patch ofstreet in front of City Hall with black, blue, gold and yellow hues in a scene depicting the chaos ofurban life.

Visitors to the ninth annual Absolut Chalk street-art festival along Garfield Avenue stopped to watchas one of the young friends, Marina Hernandez, colored in the mushroom-shaped cloud oversilhouetted buildings.

``It's good they watch,'' she said Saturday, shaded under an umbrella. ``That way they know whatyou have to go through to finish it.''

Jerry Ortega said they likely will finish their drawing today, when the art festival continues between10 a.m. and 7 p.m. in front of Pasadena City Hall at 100 N. Garfield Ave.

The Light Bringer Project, a nonprofit group, sponsors the annual event that brings together about500 artists each year in an area the size of two football fields.

Participants sketch in a surface about half the size of a parking space using chalk that will eventuallywash away.

``Any type of community should have this, anyway,'' said Dominique Ochoa, one of the five friendsfrom Highland Park. ``It gives people something to do.''

About 30 feet from Ochoa, eight others sketched circle shapes and filled them with red, yellow,green, blue and brown colors - an MM's package that had split open and spilled some of the roundcandies.

For inspiration, the artists had a large bowl filled with the actual candy nearby and invited onlookersto help themselves to the chocolates, which they kept in the shade to prevent melting.

``I fell in love with the idea of drawing food,'' said David McRobbie, who designed the candydrawing on his computer. ``Food art can be colorful and fun.''

Last year, McRobbie's group won a prize for most hair chalk whimsical drawing for a sketch of amelting ice cream cone that dripped into a storm drain.

Like the other drawings, his torn candy wrapper sketch will soon fade from the effects of weatherand the cars driving over it.

``I like that it doesn't last,'' McRobbie said. ``It has an element of the moment, a sense of enjoy it

http://www.dazzlemyhair.com/hair-chalk

while you can.''

Artists endured the heat as they squatted, knelt and lay flat on cracked concrete.

Many wore pads on their elbows and knees. Elizabeth Salisbury of Los Angeles wore a large sun hatand shaded glasses to protect her from the sun.

She hoped rain would fall Saturday even though it would immediately destroy everyone's work,including her own drawing of a woman with green hair and blue skin, looking on with large eyes.

``Imagine all the works that have been lost becauseof wars or for political reasons,'' she said. ``I'd like itto be permanent, but it's not.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1) Artist Jaime Ochoa of Los Angeles was oneof 500 artists who chalked the streets Saturday nearPasadena's City Hall.

(2) Sara Marquez of Pasadena works on hersidewalk-art entry for Pasadena's Chalk on the Walkfestival.

Daniel J. Quinajon/Pasadena Star News

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