Students display artworks on sidewalk

Students from Portales junior high, high school and Eastern New Mexico University got their creative juices flowing Saturday for the Sidewalk Chalk competition and festival.

Thirty-two students created landscapes, abstract art and portraits. PHS student Yesenia Eneriquez, 16, said she thought all the other students’ pictures were really good.

“I don’t know who is going to win, but I hope I do,” Eneriquez said. “It took me an hour and half to complete my drawing. When I came in I didn’t know what I was going to draw so when I saw someone’s hot air balloon I thought about doing that.”

Eneriquez created a landscape with hot air balloons in the sky. Another artist went with an abstract for his creation.

ENMU senior Elijah Nieto said some students were practicing and had already worked out designs before the contest began.

“I don’t work that way sometimes,” Nieto said. “I let the sidewalk tell me what it wants to be and just went with the flow. I really think the competition was well orchestrated.”

The Sidewalk Chalk competition and festival was sponsored by Portales MainStreet. Portales Art Council President Chris Taylor said they have been working for six months to prepare for the competition.

“The whole idea was to do this around youth art month,” Taylor said. “We hope next year we will have more entries and more music and more stuff for the little kids to do. I was impressed with a lot of the artwork, you can tell they put a lot of thought into it.”

The Portales Art Council is hoping the competition will take off and become a regional event where people will come in from all over the state to compete.

PJHS teacher John Birdsong said they had a good turnout of people.

“The college is already talking about making this to be a part of their major course work,” Birdsong said.

Winners:

First place: Bethany Cota and Chelsie Arnold, Portales Junior High School.

Second place: Zach Armstrong and Randi Egley, ENMU.

Third place: Anthony Flores and Garrett Buxton, Portales Junior High School.

Honorable mention: Luzelia Menoz, Portales Junior High School.