Guerilla Art - Sidewalk Art!

"Look Up The Sky Is Falling"

I did this art activity with a friend. We went out onto the streets of Toronto and used chalk to write "Look Up The Sky Is Falling." We wanted to see if people would stop to read it or if they actually looked up into the sky. When we first started doing the art piece a man came up to us and started talking to us about what we were drawing. The next person that came up to us was a lady. She made a somewhat rude remark to my friend that said "How old are you?" Meaning that we shouldn't be drawing with chalk on the sidewalk at our age. I felt as though she didn't know what exactly we were doing and that she didn't need to make such a rude comment.

Once we were finished drawing the words, we walked across the street to start to take photos of people's reactions. We got a lot of people looking down and reading what it said. We got a few people who actually started looking up to see if there was something going on, it was quite funny! Unfortunately there were no children around to see our drawings, but it would have been really interesting to see how they would've reacted to a colourful sidewalk. I think that since children love to play with sidewalk chalk, introducing them to different types of drawings/art works would get them more interested in what they can do. I would ask them what they though sidewalk art is to them, and if it is even considered art. I would let children draw whatever they wanted with the sidewalk chalk and let them explain what they drew. I loved playing with sidewalk chalk as a child and to be honest, I had fun when doing this art activity!

Here are some people's reactions: