Chalkboard for Uptown Cheapskate

Uptown Cheapskate on Mesa asked me to do a chalkboard with
Blair Breitenstein artwork on it.

See her work here —>   @Blairz

 

“Drink Specials Chalkboard at Shakespeare’s Pub in Austin, TX”

One thing which appeals to me about being an artist is the variety of things a person can do with artistic skills.  Just knowing how to draw well has opened doors for me to: paint, tattoo, airbrush, design, sculpt, animate, make comics and do several other things over the years.  A few months ago I decided to add “chalk artist” to the list of things I can do to earn “right to life vouchers”, aka. “money.”

My “go-to” hustle of portrait drawing has not paid off well since moving to Austin 2 weeks ago, so last week I printed business cards and a chalk art portfolio then walked along 6th st. in Austin asking managers at every business with a chalkboard if they might need my services.  One business took me up on that, Shakespeare’s Pub, so on the Sunday morning of July 26, 2015, I showed up at 9AM and knocked this board out in just under 5 hours.

Past Chalkboard Art

A few months ago I visited “Sumatra Cocktail Lounge” on the corner of Mesa and Rio Grande in El Paso, TX to hang out with the owner at that time, David.  He liked me enough to give me free drinks occasionally and was always telling me to bring in friends, preferably hot women (as if I had hot women following me around all the time).  This one day he asked me to draw something on his blank chalkboard paint covered door in exchange for credit at the bar, so I could get more than the little buzz my poor ass can usually afford.  I did this in about an hour and a half, in the cold, using chalk borrowed from the bar next door called “Monarch.”  It was fun and drinking for free was funner.

David liked it and suggested I try to get more work doing this at other bars and restaurants around the downtown El Paso area.  It was a good idea and I had noticed how popular chalk art was getting on the internet, so I bought some chalk and hit the streets within days of doing this first piece.

The next business interested in my work was the popular and local-art filled “Pizza Joint.”  I visited their new downtown location after seeing an A-frame chalkboard outside and chalkboard menus through the window.  One of the managers told me to come back the next day and they would let me draw something on their chalkboard wall that customers usually scribbled stuff on, to see how well I could do this new thing I didn’t have a portfolio of work for.  This next piece took much longer than I thought it would, clocking in around 4 hours of work because I wanted to impress them with this “try out.”

“Pizza Joint” liked my work and hired me to do the menus hanging above their front counter.  These took far longer than I expected them to and I screwed myself giving them an estimate on these 6 ft. wide chalkboards that took me 20 hours each to do!  However, they turned out great and helped me build a portfolio for this kind of work, plus I learned a ton of new stuff doing these and I love learning new art things!

After the Pizza Joint gig I visited Sumatra again to do another design on David’s door.  He said he wanted something cubist or a mermaid so I tried to do both but couldn’t fit a mermaid tail in this design.  It came out pretty good anyway and I got more drink credit at the bar.

During this time I did a few smaller A-frame chalkboards at other businesses, another door design for Sumatra and some other random work at various places, but I lost the photos from my phone of those pieces.  I soon became occupied with other projects and commissions which took me away from chalk art for a few weeks.  One day a friend recommended me for a job he was offered doing a large “calendar of events” chalkboard wall at “Hillside Coffee & Donut Co.”  I wish I had gotten photos of the whole wall but I was too exhausted to care after finishing this piece.

Not long after this piece I moved to Austin, TX from El Paso because of a variety of personal, health and financial problems.  Someone in Austin offered to help me with those problems and sold me on the idea that I would get much more work as an artist in this city than in El Paso, so with nothing to lose I moved.  I can’t wait to see if my friend was right about my chances here!