BY CHELYEN DAVIS

Ronald Jackson stood on Caroline Street, eyeing the canvas in front of him, dabbing more red or blue paint on a slowly emerging image of a couple dancing.

Two days before, the career Army man had arrived home in Fredericksburg from a yearlong tour in South Korea. He woke up Saturday at 3 a.m., body still adjusting to the change in time zone, and decided to join about 65 artists who spent the day creating art in downtown Fredericksburg.

Painting in public was a new experience for him, Jackson said, and he hoped it would inspire passers-by to pursue their own artistic leanings.

Before a late afternoon storm rolled in, visitors strolling Caroline and William streets could watch artists create sculptures, sketches and paintings of everything from flowers to street scenes to faces to a pool scene threatened by giant wasps.

The event--called "Art Attack"--was conceived by several local artists, including Bill Harris of LibertyTown Arts, said Scarlett Pons.

Pons, a potter, and her husband run the Ponshop on Caroline, and Scarlett Pons was on the sidewalk building a coil pot.

While Fredericksburg has a sizable art community, Pons said, art is often created privately.

The idea of the Art Attack, she said, was to bring that creation out into public, to let people see the methods and process, and interact with artists.

"A lot of times, it's an intimidating process for the public," Pons said. "This kind of breaks down that barrier between the public and the artist."

Up the street a few blocks, Amy Woodruff and her daughter Amberly Thomas were quilting and painting, respectively.

Amberly, 13, was the youngest artist in the group, she said. She was sketching out a fantastical painting of a sort of female Victorian robot with tentacles on one hand.

Art is her passion, Amberly said. "I like the way you can make anything and it's still art."

Kenneth Moore was sitting on the sidewalk, painting the view of Caroline Street in front of him--except he also added a Tyrannosaurus rex lumbering down Caroline.