A Walk Around SCAD’s Sidewalk Arts Festival

Written and Interviewed by Emma Goh

On Saturday, April 26th I had the pleasure of interviewing a few participants from the 2025 SCAD Sidewalk Arts Festival. The Sidewalk Arts Festival first started in 1980 and has been a long tradition here in the heart of Savannah where SCAD students, alumni, and local high schoolers transform the sidewalk of Savannah’s historic Forsyth Park into a place filled with elaborate chalk illustrations for the chance to win prizes.

The first person who I interviewed first was Zoe Antczak, A sophomore Illustration major. Pictured above is the square her and her group member Zoe Coval made.

Is this your first year participating ?

Zoe – This is my second year participating, I did it for fun, and registered with a friend.

Did you come into the sidewalk arts festival with any idea of what you wanted to do ? Or did you go with the flow ?

Zoe – I was really panicking coming up with an idea for the last couple days but I knew I wanted to do a fun and cartooning style so not much planning going in but having  fun and winging it.

In your experience are there any techniques or tips and tricks you use ?

Zoe – I really liked mixing [the chalk] and crushing it, mixing it with water for line art and grinding chalk into sidewalk for flat colors.

Will you return next year ?

Zoe – Definitely.

Do you have a plan for next year or will you  go with the flow again ?

Zoe – Next year I’m going to plan it out and do two squares hopefully.

For the next group, I was only able to interview two out of a group of six. I interviewed  Ryan Stanford, A junior Advertising and Branding major and Jasper Hustler, A junior Graphic Design major. Pictured above is the square Ryan and Jasper made with their fellow group members.

Is this your first year participating ?

A- Ryan – This is our third year, a team of six, they are out walking but we have pretty much participated every year always taking two or three squares. This year I feel like we’re really knocking it out, and I feel very proud of ourselves.

Jasper – It’s kind of a tradition within our friend group and something we have done since we were freshman at SCAD, really special to all of us.

Is there any sort of plan about what you want to create before you start the day?

Ryan – It’s been a blend of improv and plans, Jasper you did the sketch for this project.

Jasper – I did , probably 45 minutes to an hour before, we all came to the park at like 10 am, woke up and Sydney (another group member) was asking me “Hey jasper did you do that sketch?” and I whipped something up in about 40 minutes and here we are.

Ryan – even still we were talking about our core concept for about a week or so, so we planned but on the fly and a bit structured. 

Are there any tools or tips and tricks that you use when you get into the nitty gritty aspects?

Jasper – We kind of all come together, brushes, water color, all sorts of stuff, because that’s a technique you see a lot of people use during the chalk festival. You see people grinding their chalk up into fine powder and they’ll mix it with water and make it a paint, it really makes the paint almost like watercolors. Because it’s our third year of doing this we kind of have built up the technique over the years and best practices.  There’s a lot of space to cover, a single square is a lot more than you’d think.

Ryan – Always buy excess of what color you’ll think will be your major, Should’ve brought more whites, they sort of blended together at the end.

Do you guys have any ideas of what you wanna do next year or just kind of excited for it to come around ?

Ryan – I still think it’ll be very funny to draw Mario on the flag pole , but we shot that one down this year.

Jasper – You never know, maybe next year, we’ll figure it out when we get there, every single year, all figured it out a week before it actually happens.

You can find Ryan on Instagram at @rstanyeah and Jasper on Instagram at @buggygutz.

Last but not least I interviewed Kenzie Bayless, a junior 3D Animation major. Pictured above is the square she did by herself, and although I was not able to interview her dog, he was present in Kenzie’s lap during the interview.

Is this your first year participating in the Sidewalk Arts Festival?

Kenzie – No, this is my third year.

In your experience, do you have any idea of what you’re doing going in? Or do you go with the flow when you get here?

Kenzie- Yeah I go with the flow more often, I know people do more planning and come out with elaborate works. For me I’m much better when I’m on the spot and I just come up with an idea I tend to overthink when I plan.

Are there any tips or tricks that you use when you’re doing the art ? Crush up paint and mix it with water? Or do you just use the chalk that’s given?

Kenzie – Yeah I just use the chalks that’s given, I use a lot of my hands and am a very messy person when it comes to chalk. I rub the chalk with my hands, make sure to be clean and precise as I can so for the striations of his fur, I just do one chalk stroke and I just rub it with one finger, some bigger areas I rub with my whole hands and I get really messy with it but I just kind of move on, I know a lot of people get stuck in the details and then it gets a little bit finicky and it starts to get confusing but if I just draw the whole shape it’s a lot better for myself.

Do you have any idea of what you’re going to do next year?  If you plan to participate, the dog seems to be really well done. Will you do the dog again? Or just making up when you get here next year?

Kenzie – I have no idea what i’m going to do next year, I am approaching capstone for animation so there is a possibility that I could be in my team and we do something to promote our capstone. Or I do another realism piece, this is my first time doing a realism piece. The other times I’ve collaborated with other people and they wanted to do something a little more fun, a little bit less realistic, but I really wanted to do something realistic because that’s my favorite kind of portrait to do in fine arts.  But I will be participating next year for sure.

You can find Kenzie on Instagram at @xsunnybunny.art

So many talented artists participate in the SCAD Sidewalk Arts Festival, much like the artists I had the privilege of interviewing. If you weren’t able to catch the event this year, I hope that you go out and enjoy the great art put on display by SCAD students next year.