On a slightly overcast and humid day in Syracuse, N.Y., a unicorn, a rainbow, a surfing cow and two confused minions appeared. Down the street a few tropical birds stood perched in their trees.

Sandwiched between a sprawl of buildings, the streets and two parking lots at the corner of Montgomery and East Washington, a small strip of sidewalk became a colorful escape from cracked city pavement and continuous construction.

For one day, Montgomery Street had been transformed into the Chalk Zone.

On Saturday, local artists of all ages converged in downtown Syracuse to take part in the 24th annual Syracuse New Times Street Painting Festival, part of ArtsWeek in downtown Syracuse, to compete for cash and prizes from local businesses.

Ty Marshal, the digital media manager at the Syracuse New Times, has helped organize the competition for the past three years.

“It’s an annual event I think that highlights local street artists, gives people a chance to have friendly competition, and it brightens the streets up,” he said.

The medium, as it has been for almost the last quarter century, was chalk. The artists were arranged into youth, teen and adult groupings. After the artists registered, they picked out their own numbered sidewalk square and got to business in their own personal chalk zones.

Although the next rainstorm will most likely wash away the artists’ work, nothing stopped friends, family and spectators from appreciating the art being created right before them.

Standing with her grandfather, 8-year-old Riley Clarke of North Syracuse proudly looked over her finished drawing of an American rocket ship. Not only is she an aspiring artist – the street festival also held family ties for her.

“My grandpa told me a story when my mom and him did this like 20 years ago, and he asked me if I wanted to do it,” Clarke said. “I thought it would be really cool.”

Down the street from Clarke was 27-year-old Brandon Sanders of Eastwood. An amateur artist who works primarily with acrylics, he had been trying chalk art sporadically for two months on his driveway prior to the festival.

In his space in the middle of the sidewalk, Sanders drew Queen Nefertiti playing cards, trying to give what he said was a modern pop to the historical Egyptian. The leeway that chalk provides was something that he felt helped him out.

“[Chalk is] extremely forgiving,” Sanders said. “You can have what you consider something to be messed up, you can throw other colors on it and blend it a certain way, and it’ll look just as good as you intended to do it.”

On the other hand, there were artists like Syracuse native Ally Walker, a local graphic designer and mural artist. With her hands and formerly white cargo pants covered in a blackish-blue mix of chalk smears, she was finishing up her work, a homage to Mary Poppins.

“[Chalk’s] a great exfoliator,” Walker said with a laugh as she raised her multicolored hands.

With permanent work on display in the hospital lobby of the Golisano Children’s Hospital, Walker has been an artist her entire life. She learned to love art from her grandfather and his watercolors as a child.

Having competed in the Chalk Zone event for over half a decade, Walker said it holds a special meaning for her.

“I have fun. I like to play with any medium,” she said. “I paint for everybody else, I work for everybody else, I do what my clients want. So this is the one time a year I get to do something that’s just for me.”

Published on July 27, 2014 at 2:21 pm