Riverside High School art students got to spend a few hours in the sun on Oct. 3 as they decorated the school’s sidewalks for its annual Chalk Festival. The students applied designs referencing pop culture, wildlife and other interests to many of the school’s sidewalk blocks. The work was set to be completed ahead of Riverside’s homecoming parade that evening. Out near the school’s board office entrance, seniors Agata Soltys and Grace Schneider spent the early morning working on aquatic-themed designs. “Our homecoming theme is luau, and so we kind of wanted to come up with something that was ocean-themed and something that could fit that type of vibe,” Soltys said. They made paper and digital sketches ahead of time to prepare for the event, she said. Once they were on-site, they applied multiple layers of chalk to go from an early sketch to a blended, textured design. “We go through a lot of chalk,” Schneider added. Around the corner and down from the other projects, seniors Delaney Zuren, Ella Remington and Jessie Yanchar intentionally worked on an area of sidewalk with cracks that they could incorporate in their artwork. “We kind of knew that there were going to be some cracks in places, and also there’s this really famous artist, David Zinn, who goes around in cities, who manipulates natural things to look like something, so we just kind of wanted to find a place with a big crack and make it look cool,” Remington said. The group chose to incorporate multiple different designs in the differently-shaped segments between the cracks. “I hope it looks like an optical illusion from far away and it kind of looks like holes in the ground,” Remington said. Riverside Campus students Agata Soltys, left, and Grace Schneider add an aquatic-themed chalk design to the school's sidewalk for its annual Chalk Festival on Oct. 3. (Bryson Durst -- The News-Herald)Riverside Campus student Tommy McPeek adds a chalk design to a school sidewalk for its annual Chalk Festival on Oct. 3. Peek was part of a group that chose to draw a jellyfish-themed design. (Bryson Durst -- The News-Herald)Riverside Campus student Lily Baca adds a chalk design to a school sidewalk for its annual Chalk Festival on Oct. 3. Baca and a partner chose a design that would look like a Polaroid photograph of a sunset. (Bryson Durst -- The News-Herald)Show Caption1 of 3Riverside Campus students Agata Soltys, left, and Grace Schneider add an aquatic-themed chalk design to the school's sidewalk for its annual Chalk Festival on Oct. 3. (Bryson Durst -- The News-Herald)Expand Elsewhere along the sidewalk, Austin Goffos and Aidyn Kjos drew a large jack-o-lantern design. By mid-morning, they were in the process of adding a cat to the block. “I generally have liked art for a while, and I want to pursue that as a career, and this was just a fun thing that I got to do with friends,” Goffos said. Many other students worked on designs throughout that morning, including a number of first-year Chalk Festival participants. “It just seemed out of my comfort zone and fun to try it,” said first-year participant Lily Baca, who worked with a friend on a design intended to look like a Polaroid photograph of a sunset. Art teacher Jessica Biller said that the Riverside event was inspired by the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Chalk Festival. Riverside holds the event every year to celebrate its homecoming week and show student creativity. Students are given a packet during the first week of school, and they decide what to draw alone or with a group, Biller said. The students use sidewalk chalk and chalk pastels, and the teachers tell them how to use the pastels. A chalk design of a jack-o-lantern and cat is pictured partway through the drawing process on the Riverside Campus sidewalk on the morning of Oct. 3. Students Aidyn Kjos and Austin Goffos were drawing the chalk art that morning for the school's annual Chalk Festival. (Bryson Durst -- The News-Herald)A chalk design of a flower from the movie "Tangled" is pictured on the Riverside Campus sidewalk on the morning of Oct. 3. Students Lily Kalin and Regan Bearer were adding the design that morning for the school's annual Chalk Festival. (Bryson Durst -- The News-Herald)Show Caption1 of 2A chalk design of a jack-o-lantern and cat is pictured partway through the drawing process on the Riverside Campus sidewalk on the morning of Oct. 3. Students Aidyn Kjos and Austin Goffos were drawing the chalk art that morning for the school's annual Chalk Festival. (Bryson Durst -- The News-Herald)Expand “We hope that the parade goers on Thursday night will enjoy the chalkfest artwork when they are on campus to celebrate with our students as well as give the students something amazing to look at while walking into school,” Biller said in an email prior to the event. The participating students also expressed their appreciation for the Chalk Festival. “It’s just a really fun experience and I would definitely recommend it to different underclassmen who are debating it,” Soltys said. “I think that’s a really fun way to involve yourself with the school.” “It’s just something else that’s fun to do, and even if it looks bad, it’s going to wash away in a little bit anyway, so it’s just about kind of the experience, having fun doing it I guess,” Schneider added. “You get to listen to music, just draw, get out of class for like two blocks of the day. Why not?”