Street artists have the unique ability to turn the entire world into their canvas (画布). Artist David Zinn's work is no different, as he masterfully uses his natural environment to bring his delightful creations to life.
Depending on the seasonal conditions around him, Zinn combines his character-filled chalk drawings with fallen leaves and more permanent landscape features, including rocks and sidewalk cracks.
Zinn's drawings remind people of children's book illustrations and often feature animals with adorable look. Even though he draws a variety of creatures, his art does feature some recurring (多次再现的) characters—including Sluggo, a tiny green animal; Philomena, a flying pig; and Nadine, a small but brave mouse.
Zinn chooses to draw his creations onto staircases, streetlamps, and other fixtures of urban life besides the flat sidewalks. The artist also uses optical illusions (视觉错觉) in his work, providing the appearance of bottomless chasms (大裂口) or holes in sidewalks for his characters to climb in or out of.
Zinn has been making characteristic chalk art around Ann Arbor Michigan, since 1987. However, his drawings have attractive sidewalks all over the world.
Due to the materials that he uses and the fact that his art is often located in high-trafficked locations, all of Zinn's chalk drawings are temporary, only lasting for as long as nature allows them to. However, this contributes to their uniqueness, as no two drawings will ever be the exact same.
In order to be viewed, Zinn's work also forces people to look down and pay attention to the environment around them, which is more and more difficult in our ever-changing and increasingly connected world. However, his colorful creatures encourage people to stop and smell the roses, and find something lovely.
