Casey Drake is a self-taught artist based in Florida.
"I've never taken any formal classes," Drake, 32, told Insider
As a high-school science teacher, she drew and painted as a hobby, and she's picked up skills over time by watching others.
"I have two young kids, so I took a break where I wasn't really making anything for a while. And then with the coronavirus, we had a lot more time on our hands," Drake said.
"It kind of gave me an unforeseen opportunity to sit down and make something again."
In April, Drake started creating chalk art on the sidewalk in front of her house.
Drake told Insider she hadn't used chalk as an artistic tool until about a month ago when she was playing with her daughter.
"We were just sitting outside because we were getting a little stir crazy and the weather was nice," she said.
Drake drew Olaf from "Frozen," and her neighbors quickly noticed the colorful sketch.
"My next-door neighbors started encouraging me to come out every day," Drake said of her work.
"They didn't really give me a choice," Drake joked. "They were like, 'You're going to come outside every day and draw.'"
"It kind of became a daily tradition," she said.
Drake started adding humorous messages about life amid the coronavirus to her drawings.
"The first couple I did just had generic, uplifting messages, but I deal with difficult things with humor anyway so it was kind of a natural progression," Drake said.
Drake realized incorporating humor into her work was a good idea after going to the grocery store one day.
"I went to the grocery store with my masks and my gloves, and I was nervous," she said.
"But then I caught my reflection and thought, this looks absurd. I would've never imagined going to the grocery store like this a month ago."
"I realized everybody else is dealing with the same absurdly quick change to our lives and how we do basic things, and if we can kind of laugh at that, there's a bit of solidarity," she added.
Drake's work includes famous characters because it's easier to convey her message that way.
"With any cartoon, there's only so much information you can put into it, so anything with a known backstory really helps," Drake said.
"So a lot of the characters are recognizable — people know their stories already — so I can tie that in with the humor without having to explain too much."
Drake even portrays modern figures people would recognize, like Joe Exotic from Netflix's "Tiger King."
"I'm trying to think of specific things that are new in our lives, and then finding characters or stories that fit with that," Drake said of how she thinks of her ideas.
Both "Tiger King" and toilet paper shortages have become part of people's day-to-day lives in recent months, so this sketch made perfect sense.
Drake also gets suggestions from her followers and neighbors on what to draw.
Drake said that chalk can be difficult to work with.
She uses normal sidewalk chalk for her work, which can be challenging.
"It's not super forgiving," she said of the material.
"If you mess up, you have to pour water on it and erase it, and it smears. It's definitely a learning curve."
But Drake said the chalk art has been good for her mental health because it gives her a reason to sit outside.
"It's fun to sit outside, and I get to socialize with some neighbors while they sit in their yards," she said.
"It's really been mentally good for me to go outside and create something and get some social interaction."
Drake also told Insider her work has been helpful because it's distracting.
"I have two young kids and parents and grandparents and I was staying up at night, like a lot of people, worrying," Drake said of her mentality early on in the pandemic.
"This has been a huge outlet for me because now at night, I'm thinking about what I'm going to draw the next day and not worrying obsessively over my family getting sick."
Drake also likes that the medium speaks to the time she's making art in.
"It washes off when it rains," Drake said of her drawings, and she doesn't mind that her work goes away.
"It's a reminder that this is all temporary."
"This will be done too," she added. "The chalk will go away, and the quarantine will end eventually."
Drake's work has also been a hit with people outside of her neighborhood, as her drawings have been attracting online attention in the last month.
"That's a huge bonus that I wasn't really foreseeing," she said. "I have people messaging me from all over the world."
Drake's number of followers on Instagram has gone from 88 to over 31,000 since she started her chalk work.
David Spade, who played Kuzco in "The Emperor's New Groove," even shared Drake's work on his Instagram story.
Kuzco's famous line, "No touchy," is more relevant than ever as people practice social distancing.
Drake's own life experiences serve as the inspiration behind some of her chalk art.
For instance, her depiction of the minions from "Despicable Me" is Drake's favorite work from her collection, as it speaks to her experience being home with her kids 24/7.
"I have a 2-year-old and a 7-month-old, so my life is kind of chaotic," she said, noting that the drawing embodies how she feels much of the time.
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Self-taught artist using chalk drawings to brighten her neighborhood - Insider - INSIDER
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