By Mathew Shaw/se news editor
Students let the concrete be their canvas for the annual SE chalk-drawing competition Chalk The Walk April 24.
From 10 a.m.-3 p.m., students got their hands dirty covering the school sidewalk with their artwork.
Andrea Salas, whose work “Mother Nature” won second place, drew a portrait of a green-skinned woman with multicolored locks.
“My inspiration comes from nature and the female figure,” she said. “I used green as the face because it represents the greenness of nature. Red is the complementary color, and I tried to use every color because every color is beautiful.”
Winning first place was Monica Prashar’s “Wisdom Takes Time,” and third place was “Survivor” by Raelea Hiller.
The TV show Cosmos and Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” inspired Elizabeth Gonzalez and Cooper Nguyen’s drawing, which featured two trees in the midst of swirling blue and yellow that made up the night sky.
“There’s a quote saying, ‘We’re all made out of star stuff,’” Nguyen said.
He said the drawing gave one an “interconnected” feel.
“I’m infatuated by it,” Gonzalez said. “It really captures the night.”
She added it made one think of more than just the simplicity of trees.
Lilibeth Vazquez let the concept of diversity inspire her work, which was a tree covered in handprints in an assortment of colors.
“My idea is that … nature is sustained by the diversity of humans,” she said. “All the hands are connected. They’re different colors, but they’re connected.”
Human interaction was the subject of Maurice Onyeriodo’s work, which featured a man and a woman at the center top looking into each other’s eyes and another man at the bottom left looking melancholy.
“You can see a man and a woman standing close together, and you can see another man here with his head bowed down, like he’s sad and jealous of the other man,” he said.
The criss-crossing lines, he said, show the “interconnectivity of human beings in their daily interactions with one another, which also includes friendship. A friendship with one person can cause problems with other people.”
Despite being an artist, chalk-drawing is not something Onyeriodo is used to.
“I have to squat down and work,” he said. “And this is a temporary thing. If you come here next week, you will not find it here.”
