Skip to main content

Hacking Sidewalk Chalk

Sidewalk chalk. The awesomeness of temporary art.

MF loves the stuff... He does his best at drawing fish, sharks, circles and monkeys (they all look the same) and has us supplement his Jackson Pollock-esque doodles with fish and other things... But mostly fish.

And it's up for a day or two then gone after a rain... As it should be.

But it could be a little disappointing because it's so faint... And so temporary... What if you could hack it and make it better?

That's just what we did.

It was an accident. We left the washable sidewalk chalk out during a storm and the box got filled with water... It stayed like that for a few days before we noticed...

Then came a nice day and The Kid wanted to play chalk... So play we did (although we really didn't play chalk we used chalk or drew with chalk or such) after I drained the chalk box.

The water gave the chalk an awesome consistency... And the color was amazing. The chalk rods (is that what you call them) were super soft and they almost melted into the concrete... I wish I took pics of them because the color was so vibrant and bright. I will and I'll update the post.

Anyway I drew fish like normal... One was an anglerfish because, well they're awesome... And I make little fish going into their mouths... And dude knows them as anglerfish which is one reason he's awesome. The other a normal fish...

And time passed and it rained... And the fish stayed, and it rained again and they stayed and a torrential rain and they're there...

The fish are faint but they've persisted... Faint but there... It's been about a month.

Happy blue fish
Sad super faint anglerfish
I tried to see if the chalk would come out with some scrubbing and it does...

The temporary chalk was hacked... The kids on our street love that there is still a shark on the sidewalk (it's obviously a happy fish and an anglerfish but whatever) and I created a new toy...

An awesome semi-temporary super saturated, super soft, super colorful sidewalk chalk...

I'm gonna figure out how long the chalk needs to soak and I'll do a tutorial soon.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New Giveaway: ABC's for Expectant Dads - 10 awesome copies

Winners have been picked for the giveaway. Todd was so nice as to give all who entered by the deadline a copy of his book. Thanks all who entered...I sent an email to you for your info. Please email me (info on the header) if you don't get that email. Rommel I could not find your email...please let me know your contact info. A bit ago I found Todd Lieman in Twitterland and he sent me a copy of his book ABC's for Expectant Dads: The Ultimate A- for Dads-in-Training. I'd looked at a bunch of expectant dad books and I thought most were terrible. I did pick up The Expectant Father and I liked it but I haven't looked at it in months. I think it's tough for dad's because we're just reading about what's going on with the mothers and it's easier to hear it from them. Staci is reading so much that she keeps me up to date on things I should know and I'm sure most expectant moms are the same. I'm also luckily in that doing this blog has connected

The Cat in the Hat Knows Pretty Much Nothing About That

I find myself saying it a lot but we don't let Miloh watch a lot of TV... Mostly because it goes a bit against Montessori at home (although we're pretty reform with that) and also because we, read I, watch too much and we don't want Miloh in the habit. On the list of things he does watch is The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That. Netflix is our friend in the mornings so he will get a bit of that or Sesame Street while the person who's on duty that AM tries to actually wake up. And Miloh truly loves the show. He calls it hat and pats his head. He let's us know that there's a fish on screen every time the fish comes on screen, he dances and says "Go, go, go" when they sing that song. Unfortunately since we really only watch on Netflix we've only seen eight episodes... But this gives me time to really think about the show. Here are some problems with it: The Cat in the Hat actually really knows almost nothing about everything. He does

Dear Scott the Paleontologist – the response... Wait sorry... the awesome response

In my last post I asked some incredibly pressing questions to Dr. Scott Sampson aka Scott the Paleontologist. Questions that any parent of a Dinosaur Train fan wants to know... I got a reply and I have to say Dr. Scott is hilarious and pretty awesome... But I'm a fan of science humor... So here are his responses in line with mine. They're in blue because that's the color of most of  Shiny Pteranodon. Dear Scott the Paleontologist, My son Miloh and I are fans of Dinosaur Train and as an avid fan I have some questions regarding it that I hope you can answer: The train is a steam engine. Does it run off coal? If it does use coal is there a possibility that greenhouse gases from that could have lead to the extinction of dinosaurs? How come this isn't a theory? Very interesting question. Yes, to the best of my knowledge, the Dinosaur Train runs on fossil fuels, but we actually do have an episode upcoming where we investigate alternative fuel trains. Given that