The sweat comes from the environment, summer mornings at Lacy-Lakeview’s Veterans Memorial Park, where he is transferring Carmen Jaziyah’s colorful diagram “The Chocolate Game” into a durable sidewalk painting. As the sun rises, so does the temperature of his hard-surface canvas.

Working with several small containers of paint, the 34-year-old artist painted the bright colors of “The Chocolate Game” and its cookies, chocolate syrup streams and chocolate bars at a scale suitable for small feet and legs.

“I don’t like painting,” he confessed, pausing to talk about it.

It’s the second streetscape for Solanki this summer, following a “Schoolhouse Rock” piece by Crystal Fluker that he completed in Mountainview Park in Waco. It’s also the second for Veterans Memorial Park, following Waco artist Jamie Baesa’s completion of the first, a Mario Brothers-style obstacle course designed by Saleen Castenada.

Their sidewalk work is the latest iteration of a sidewalk obstacle course initiative between the nonprofit arts organization Creative Waco and the Waco-McLennan County Health Department. The park-centered art project aims to get kids outside and exercise by creating less of an obstacle course and more of an interactive game of hopscotch.

Solanki has worked on streets and walls before, participating in two Chalk Walks in downtown Waco and helping to complete a mural at the Dr Pepper Museum. His preferred art form is also two-dimensional, but in a more temporary medium: graphic novels and comics.

Sunday newspaper comics and superheroes like Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman sparked his interest in drawing during his childhood in Dallas, and his love of drawing and sketching never left him. About six years ago, his wife Brandi, a psychotherapist, even advised him to take art more seriously.

Ink, pencil, and an iPad for digital coloring are his preferred tools for creating art. An ongoing project, the webcomic adventure “Ravana’s Relics,” reflects his desire to tell stories through the lens of his Indian-American culture. “Ravana’s Relics” follows two Indian-American middle school students on a cross-country adventure exploring Indian culture and mythology.

The courses completed this summer in Bellmead and Lacy-Lakeview represent an extension of the park sidewalk project funded by a post-pandemic grant from Texas Healthy Communities.

Kristy Perkins, health education specialist with the Waco-McLennan County Health Department, said the project was created to encourage children to play outdoors in the months following the easing of pandemic-related lockdowns and school quarantines.

It combines courses designed and drawn by elementary school students with local artists who transform the children’s sketches into something more permanent and usable. In past years, courses have been painted at Bledsoe-Miller Park in Waco, the Doris Miller Community Center, Oscar DuConge Park, Dewey Community Center and South Waco Park, and McBrayer Park in Lorena, Perkins said.

In the final round of the project, students at Connally Elementary School created the sidewalk courses, and organizers chose the parks closest to their schools in Lacy-Lakeview and Bellmead to turn their artwork into something physically playable.

Those at Veterans Memorial Park feature video game characters and candy, while Baesa’s walkway course at Brame Park uses chips and guacamole. The cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants serves as inspiration for Julie Cervantes’ walkway at Devorsky Park.

Now that students are back in school, Perkins hopes to bring the Connally students together with the artists who realized their sketches at some sort of public reception or event.

Unlike the activity trails already completed, the walkway project does not have a final location yet. If funding becomes available next summer, five more area parks could offer colorful activity trails, Perkins said.