Visual Artist Jenny McCracken (vegan) - Coloring the World with Joy and Fun, Part 1 of 2

In 2015, she won first prize at the World Street Painting Festival in the Netherlands. One of her works even went on Australia’s national stamp! “And at that stage in the early 1980s, pavement art and chalk festivals were just beginning. You could go out on the street, share your own creations, either musically or with visual art. And it becomes like a public artwork. And that was what led me into really studying and developing my skills as a 3D artist. So that’s the idea of creating an illusion space beyond the plane of the picture. So I taught myself by looking at the old masters, by looking at learning how to do perspective, and simply by repetitive practice.” The vegan visual artist from Australia, Jenny McCracken will continue to tell us how her career as an artist began. “I have taken those skills that I learned during that theater art period and I apply them today to the paintings that I do on water towers and on large walls and on really any exciting, interesting surface that I’m allowed to paint on.”

Winning first place in the “Madonnari Semplici” division of the 2012 pavement art competition “Incontro Nazionale dei Madonnari” in Grazie di Curtatone, Italy, was a big breakthrough for Jenny’s career. “It’s really the closest thing that art comes to sport, because you have to have stamina, you have to have flexibility, you have to have creativity, imagination, you have to have skill, and you have to have speed. And you have to draw like this for 24 hours! Other festivals allow you to use brushes and water, but this one, you can only use chalk.” “I chose to draw the Assumption. So it was quite tricky to do the 3D design. But I kind of basically gave us a side view of Mary rising up to Heaven with angels helping Her along the way.” “We share a love particularly with the pavement art, there is an element of direct response with your audience, like we create work. Particularly the 3D work is made to be interactive. And that just shares so much happiness. It’s such a wonderful thing to see people come upon a surprise piece of artwork, and just really enjoy playing with the illusion. It’s fabulous.”