Crayon Portraits and Short Stories
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008The Mission: Crayon portraits with a short story.
The Goal: Spread Christmas cheer and hopefully raise some money for The Salvation Army.
The tools: Paper, crayons, and type writer.
Location: Broadway, New York City
Recently, while trying to think of a way to do something for a good cause, I came up with the idea about trying to do crayon portraits for people on the street. I also wanted to raise some money without it ever touching our hands and it going directly to a charity. I saw one of those Salvation Army donation bell-ringers on Broadway and I thought up a plan of trying to set up next to them, and encourage people to donate to them. I ran the idea by my friend Jason Jaworski, who I think is a great writer, and he agreed almost immediately to join in. He wanted to contribute by adding a short story to accompany the portraits and an idea was born. Why crayon portraits? Well, I don’t feel confident with doing portraits, so I thought people would be forgiving if they were rendered in crayon, plus it felt more fun! Inspired by spontaneity, we hit up a 99¢ Store and bought some crayons and two pads of paper, all of which added up to $ 3.21 total. Jason brought his typewriter. We had breakfast, and then were on our way, not knowing what the day would bring. We wondered if anyone would even stop for a portrait, amidst a chaotic Christmas shopping weekend. As soon as we got there, we drew up some signs and scrounged for some tape to stick up the signs and we sat on the sidewalk. We had barely finished setting up when some people stopped to read what we were doing. Our first and most memorable client was this kid
whose family asked us to draw him. He was so excited to get his picture drawn and told us that he was on his way to the F.A.O Schwartz toy store for the first time. He was so excited to tell us about it. Jason used this for his inspiration and wrote up a little tale on his typewriter. The presence of a typewriter surprisingly made a lot of people just stop to listen to the click clacking sounds of it.
This is what jason wrote:
“We rounded the corner and entered F.A.O. Schwartz. There was nothing more magical to me than a kingdom full of toys. Falling asleep later that night, I stared up at my ceiling, wondering about the wonders of the city- the street, the signs and the sidewalk. It would be Christmas soon- everything was at peace. 12/14/2008″
The kid was elated with his crayon portrait/story and so were the parents. He personally thanked us and later returned to thank us again. They donated some money to the Salvation Army bell ringer and were on their way! After this, we were flooded by people. We never suspected the turn out we got as well as the joy and smiles that came with doing such a simple thing. This was no big deal for us to do, I enjoy drawing and Jason loves to write, but people treated it as this huge thing.
We met so many wonderful people and it was great to see their reactions and to hear their stories. The whole experience just felt magical.
There were various tales. We met a couple that it was their last day together before her boyfriend returned to Turkey for a year and said that their portrait together would be a memorable thing for them. Also, a guy who had simply asked to borrow a pen later thanked us by saying that we saved his life, because he had just returned from Iraq and got a call from a job after being without work for months. He got the call on the street and needed to write down the number. I also had the unusual experience of being asked to draw a guy’s wife by description because he was going to pick her up from a trip and wanted to surprise her with the drawing/story. I did my best and about an hour later, he strolled by without her knowing and purposely passed right by us twice, so that we could see his wife. He smiled and winked at us. We thought it was great that he did that and I felt I was close to capturing her except she had fuller lips than I had drawn! There was also a couple that had met on the dance floor and they were so excited when I drew a disco ball in the background of their drawing. We were having a great time and before we knew it, it was night time and we were still going until… the police came! We explained the situation and that it was for a good cause and they were not having any of it. They said it was illegal for us to sit on the ground and have signs taped to the building. We tried stalling in hopes that they would leave and continue, but they waited ’till we took everything down and watched us leave. They stopped us good, but it didn’t matter to us. There was no way they could take away what we felt, what the people felt, experiencing what we did, and we were filled with such joy. Jason said to me that this was the best thing he ever did and after finding out he didn’t have to work the next day, he asked if we could do it again.
We did!
UPDATE: Some more pics from that day:
(she didn’t want her glasses in the drawing- done!)
-Rhode
Special thanks to Mr. Mulgrew who took the photo of us along with our signage.
UPDATE PART 2: Crayon Portraits and Short Stories: SUBWAY EDITION!!!
On the last weekend before Christmas, Jason got the idea of moving our operation into the subway! It was crazy, it was bumpy, the turnaround was quicker, but it was fun! This time since there were no Salvation Army people, we just did the portrait/story for free and told people it was their Christmas gift. Again, lots of smiles, lots of stories, some puzzled looks and some surprises. This time we had Jason’s girlfriend Kate, who helped color the portraits! The pace was quicker here as some folks had to get off at two stops some even one stop away! (those quick drawings didn’t get colored or stories because of the short time). Everyone that got a portrait/story and even some who witnessed everything, had a smile on their face!
-Rhode
