This weekend I had a bit of time to myself — my wife and daughter were still in Arizona (I had to get home early for work), the weather was nice, and I’ve got no shortage of camera gear.

So when I could take a break from my honey-do list, I decided to make some quick trips into downtown Denver to check out the Denver Chalk Art Festival. It’s an annual, free, two-day street painting festival — with more than 200 artists turning 3 blocks of downtown streets into an open air chalk art museum.

And boy, are these folks ever good! Here you can see one hard at work on the details of her creation (BTW, there’s a contest associated with the festival — if you like the image and have a Facebook account, please leave a comment on its contest page):

I’m not sure if this one had an Avatar tie-in or not, but the skin tone’s about right (its contest page is here):

This next one was one of my favorites (it’s by Dawn Morrison Wagner, check out her web site!), even before it was finished:

This is a portrait of Music, somewhat in the style of Alphonse Mucha (its contest page is here).

And then of course, there’s this bit of excellent advice on living your life:

More to come…