Artists who use sidewalks as their canvas know that their art is temporary. If you are lucky enough to see one of these 3D-looking masterpieces, it’s best to take a photo right then and there, because next week it could be gone! I have only myself encountered one of these sidewalk paintings – usually I see them online somewhere – so I was happy to find this one, which was done on the sidewalk in front of the Des Plaines Public Library last August. I have not seen it since, so I assume it was removed or washed away.

Only having this one sidewalk masterpiece to post on the Photographing Public Art Challenge, I looked in my archives for a few other works of “art” on the sidewalk.

I’m not quite sure what this was about (we were just walking by) but it covered an entire block in downtown Denver when we were there three years ago.

This may not be considered “art” but these intersection crossings in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, were eye-catching and clever.

Sometimes, sidewalk art is in the form of mosaics, like this one that we sat next to while listening to our guide outside the Church of the Beatitudes in Israel.

More famous are the mosaic tile sidewalks in Rio de Janeiro. This view is looking down from a bar on the top floor of a hotel in Copacabana.