Taking it to
the Streets
Written by Paul Glasser
Moon graduate Paige Landay
stuns passersby with street art.
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P
aige Landay, an art student from Moon,
says her first attempt at street painting
with chalk pastels was a challenging and
rewarding experience. She created the painting
for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the
Arts in State College in July.
Landay graduated from Moon Area High
School in 2014 and is a junior at Penn State
University where she studies art education.
After attending the arts festival for several
years, she decided to participate in this year’s
street painting event. Using chalk pastels and
painting on the street surface were both new
experiences, Landay says.
“Working on the street surface is not like
canvas or paper,” Landay says. “You are on top
of the artwork rather than having paper on an
easel.”
She created a grid to help her map out the
painting and create the proper perspective.
Landay brought a gardening kneepad because
she had to kneel for many hours while
completing her painting. “I was in many
different awkward positions to try and work on
the piece without ruining it,” she says.
Landay also had to contend with the
weather, which included hot temperatures and
two rainstorms that threatened to wash away
her work. She had to use tarps and a tent to
protect the painting. It took about 20 hours to
complete the work.
Landay and several other artists completed
their works while the art festival was ongoing,
so attendees could watch them work. Many
passersby asked questions and offered
compliments while Landay worked, and she
sometimes took breaks to chat with onlookers.
“It was a very interactive experience,” she says.
“It was fun to get that immediate response
rather than waiting until the piece is finished.”
Her piece was based on the painting “Girl
with Sailboat,” which was originally created by
artist Edmund Charles Tarbell in 1899. She
chose that picture because it had a summer
theme and incorporated lots of colors. “Since
the street surface is already dark, I wanted to
make sure I could use very vibrant colors,”
Landay says.
After the festival ended, the streets were
washed and the paintings disappeared. Landay
says she would have been frustrated if the rain
had washed away her painting while she was
working on it, but she was not disappointed
that her painting was only on display
temporarily. “It served its purpose,” she says.
“We also took lots of pictures.”
In the future, Landay would like to expand
her artistic skills by exploring other media. She
is enrolled in a studio art class this semester
and is looking forward to trying her hand at
oil painting because many famous artists have
worked in that medium. Landay also enjoys