Talal Majdali was crouched down by a railing, staring at the ground in front of him. His hands (and shirt, and pants, and shoes) were already stained by the dust of soft pastels he brought with him to the Redondo Pier, and they were about to add another shade.
Working deliberately, he smudged the hard edges of his lines, creating a soft shadow, before looking for other areas to detail.
Majdali was one of more than 177 artists, young and old, who laid their art on concrete canvas at the 13th Annual Redondo Pier Chalk Art Festival this past weekend. Majdali, an occasional art instructor with the LA Unified School District, came to Redondo’s Waterfront with his family, including his cousin (and fellow chalk-art festival competitor) Jupiter Saucedo and his four-year-old son Ronnie.
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to get him to stand still as much as he could,” 23-year-old Majdali said of his son, who was the model for the piece: A portrait of the boy standing before a sunset.
“Go back on the face a little bit,” Saucedo warned his cousin. “See how the face is fading, when the wind blows the dust and it starts erasing your lines? That’s what I didn’t know about this.” Unfamiliar with chalk, he fell back on a comfortable standby, writing “Redondo Beach” in graffiti-style bubble lettering.
The two both seriously picked up art in their teens, coming up using spray and acrylic paints. “Teachers would let me do my thing, even let me leave class to go paint murals,” Majdali said.
“I’m going to draw you now!” Majdali’s son said, bouncing around the edges of his dad’s work.
Majdali laughed. “Yeah? Alright then,” he said to his son while scanning his nearly-finished artwork.
13th Annual Chalk Art Festival winners by category:
Under 4: Kingston Oakley
Ages 5 to 8: Emma Bourdais
Ages 9 to 13: Kayla Melville
Ages 14 to 17: Cynthia Helm
Ages 18 and up: Alicia Berrueco
Professionals: June Tong
