julian beever chalk artist

my daughter came across this man’s work and thought that it deserved a spot on the golden fish blog. she and i both trace our appreciation for the fine art of the street chalk artist back to the famous scene in mary poppins
when the film literally unfolds as bert, the banks children and mary poppins herself jump inside one of bert’s chalk drawings on the sidewalk. what was initially a mere landscape drawing is transformed into a real parallel world - complete with a stream, merry-go-round, a race course, and turtles that transport bert and mary downstream on their backs!

nowadays, chalk artists can be found alongside street performers, buskers, and hot dog/sausage vendors in major cities around the world. many chalk artists focus on incredible renderings of old masters’ paintings. julian beever is in an entirely different region of the chalk art world.

hailing from melton mowbray in leicestershire, a town more commonly associated with its lovely namesake melton mowbray pie, and the magic stilton cheese, julian beever has elevated the noble art of purloining coins in exchange for clever renderings of masterpieces on concrete using little more than chalk. now i should mention before i go on that sidewalk chalk is not your standard calcite product being comprised mainly of gypsum.

here's a familiar site to parents of young children or to anyone associated with sidewalk chalk drawings.

what differentiates beever from many other sidewalk artists is that he employs the technique of trompe l’oeil, literally “trick-of-the-eye”, that creates the illusion of a three dimensional object or scene while actually being a two dimensional painting or drawing.

here are just a few examples of beever’s work:

art and artist
batman and robin
coca cola
into the well
revealed
shifted
toy sailboat


and here are a whole lot more !

here’s film of beever creating a work for the aveeno company:

here’s some video of julian beever creating a work of art for america’s independence day;


another incredibly talented street artist to spend time looking into is kurt wenner.