For four days every year, a portion of the parking lot in front of The Marketplace turns into a patchwork of chalk drawings as part of the Via Arte Italian Street Painting festival. Artists from Bakersfield and beyond converge on the freshly coated blacktop to create temporary masterpieces – to be enjoyed by passersby for just those few fleeting days, before being washed away.

It’s a labor of love, the artists say. There is no money in it, no finished product to take with them to display or sell. Some capture the images with cameras, or commit their artwork to memory. All enjoy sharing the process with the many visitors who walk by, stop, chat, ask questions, and learn.

I visited with the creators of six of the chalk drawings over the weekend and talked with them about their inspiration, challenges and experience with street painting. The following is a snapshot of the weekend-long event.

The artwork is on display though Monday, Oct. 12, when the chalk drawings will be hosed down starting at 6 p.m. If you missed seeing the artists at work over the weekend, try to head out to The Marketplace on Monday and catch a glimpse of their efforts before they’re gone forever.

Twelve Shades

Brent Eviston and Vikki Cruz, both art instructors at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, based their grid of 12 sunglass-clad women on a contemporary portrait montage by Jeff Hein. They photographed 11 of their friends (Cruz is one of the subjects) for the piece, and divvied up the drawing duties so they both worked on each portrait together, blending their techniques. Eviston focused on the faces and necks while Cruz worked on hair, clothing and backgrounds.

“We want it to look like it’s coming from the same artist, not in two different styles,” Cruz said.

This is Eviston’s sixth year participating in Via Arte, and Cruz’s fifth. With shop lights aimed at the ground, the duo joined many of the artists working late into the night, and estimated they would spend 50 to 60 hours during the three-day painting period to complete their piece.

“It’s a cool atmosphere at night,” Eviston said. “It’s like a tiny city. There are a lot of people out here we only see once a year.”

Cruz added, “The artists really pull together as a community. We share a passion, and even though it’s temporary and it isn’t going to last, we are here for the love of art.”

3-D Fantasy

Michael Kirby is the featured artist at this year’s Via Arte. He is based in Baltimore, Maryland, and travels around doing both street painting and public art installments such as murals and statues. His chalk drawing is a fantastical depiction of two lovers kissing, enveloped by a dragon and framed by a castle that seems to be rising up from he ground.

“These are two friends of mine. I saw them kissing and I thought they would make a good piece of art,” he said. “The castle I saw in Holland. And kids love dragons, so that’s for the general public’s enjoyment.”

To make his chalk drawing seem like it’s three dimensional, he used the technique of one-point perspective, drawing all vertical lines to meet at the bottom of his image in one point. Then he used the technique of foreshortening, in which the artist draws feet small and heads big to make the forms seem like they are popping out of the image.

“For me, it’s all about the creative process,” he said. “Once it’s done, it’s worthless to me. I get my joy out of working on it. People love art and love having the opportunity to see it happen before them.”

Limoncello Girl

This is Beth Ramone’s 10^th year street painting at Via Arte. Usually an acrylic and gouache (opaque watercolor) painter, she works with chalk once a year, at this event. To prepare, she paints an original piece of art to duplicate in her square. For this year’s piece, she was inspired by Italian culture – Limoncello is a popular lemon-flavored liqueur in Italy.

The drawing includes a lemon tree in the background, as well as a birdcage. She incorporates birds in all of her pieces, she said.

Working with chalk is a challenge, Ramone said. For example, laying down too much color can result in quite the mess. You can tell who’s an artist at Via Arte because they tend to have chalk all over them. Supplies include rubber gloves, knee pads, and squares of cardboard for kneeling on.

“That’s what makes it fun, though – to work in a medium that you’re not used to for three days a year. And if you hate it, it’s washed away,” she joked. “That’s why I do preliminaries. I usually love my piece.”

Man On Wire and The Garden

With an iPhone laying nearby supplying them with a soundtrack, four Stockdale High School art students laughed and worked side-by-side Sunday morning to finish their two chalk drawings.

Christine Bell and Shelby Johnson, both seniors, worked on their piece, inspired by Joan Miro’s cubist painting “The Garden.”

Karl Hong, a junior, and Daniel Ochoa, a senior, had just a little way to go to finish their piece, inspired by the documentary “Man On Wire,” about Frenchman Philippe Petit, who performed a tight-rope act on a wire rigged between the Twin Towers in 1974. Hong and Ochoa’s subject is dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase as he balances on a wire outside of a skyscraper.

“Part of the reason I love this is the finger painting feel,” said Hong, who also participated in last year’s Via Arte. “It’s the only prestigious way to finger paint.”

Water Boy

The eyes are what grab your attention in the street painting by Noelle Meaway and her mother Marcia Meaway. They came up from Los Angeles to participate in Via Arte, and re-created a portrait of a friend’s son who was photographed in the pool with beads of water on his face.

Compared with the other artists – some of whom started as early as Thursday evening – the team got a bit of a late start on Saturday. On Sunday morning, half of the boy’s face was complete – with one eye seeming to float on the blacktop surface.

“I started with the eyes because they’re a focal point,” Noelle Meaway said. “His eyes really pop out.”

At 12-feet-by-12-feet, this drawing is the largest piece of art the 22-year-old has ever tackled, she said. Usually she paints with acrylics on much smaller canvases.

“I’ve done chalk drawing but not this big,” she said with a smile.

Fall Pomegranates

Ann Hefferman of Santa Barbara has been doing chalk drawings for about 15 years and this was her fifth or sixth visit to Bakersfield for Via Arte. She was thankful for the weather, although it was a little hot, this year. In some years past, rain has dampened the event, she said.

Her autumnal depiction of juicy pomegranates on tree branches gave a very warm feeling, especially as the dappled morning light began to shine through the trees lining the art walk.

Unlike some of the other artists, chalk is a regular medium for Hefferman, who also draws with colored pencils.

“I really don’t do a whole lot outside of street painting,” she said. “I like the way chalk blends, it’s so beautiful.”

When asked what it’s like to create art that is just temporary, she smiled and said she loves it.

“It’s more about the process than having something to keep. You have the picture, the memories and the satisfaction of completing it,” she said.

Via Arte 2009 Winners:

Original art

• 1st place: Vikki Cruz and Brent Eviston
• 2nd place: Art Sherwyn & Linda Hyatt
• 3rd place: Robin Martin

Visiting Professional

• Lorelle Miller

Reproduction

• 1st place: Shelley Juhl O’Brien
• 2nd place: Allie Shehorn
• 3rd place: Rebecca Osterdock