New London — Berth Ngomba heard about the Down by the Riverside Festival from a flyer her daughter brought home from Nathan Hale Arts Magnet School, but she needed directions to the park. She didn't know it was there.

Taking a quick break from running around with friends, Ngomba's 6-year-old daughter, Elin, said with a giggle about the festival, "My favorite part was eating the hot dogs."

The hot dogs were free, as was the festival in general. It featured live folk and singer/songwriter performances, face-painting, plein air painting, a tree walk with Maggie Redfern of the Connecticut College Arboretum, a magic show from Dave Wyskiel, insect catching and a bicycle helmet giveaway from the New London Kiwanis.

The Riverside Park Conservancy runs this festival, now in its seventh year, in part to target people like Ngomba, who don't realize the tree-lined park is tucked away behind Winthrop Elementary School.

But while many festivals begin advertised as the "first annual," conservancy Treasurer Ronna Stuller said that was not the case for this festival. It began in September of 2011 to counter a proposal to sell a portion of the park to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Voters narrowly turned down the sale in a referendum that year.

Down by the Riverside Festival "was so much fun that we decided to do it another year, and another year," Stuller said. Early Saturday afternoon, she said she expected the festival to draw 300-500 people.

The six-hour event was funded in part by a grant from the Frank Loomis Palmer Fund.

Four years ago, the conservancy began inviting local landscape artists for plein art painting.

"One of our goals with that was that so people would see the artist's view of our park and look at it with fresh eyes, because it is a little rough around the edges," Stuller said.

One of those artists is Waterford resident Diane A. Smith, who doesn't do a lot of plein art painting but has come to the festival for the past three years.

"I get a little self-conscious doing stuff in front of other people, but it's fun, and I think it's really a good cause," Smith said.

This year, she used pastels to depict the playground, which was built in 2013 and dedicated to Emilie Parker, one of the first-graders killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Smith also let kids draw around her frame, ending up with a star and a flower and a tree. After nearly four hours at the festival, she began packing up to finish the details at home.

The work of the plein air artists will be on display and for sale at the Garde Arts Center next month.

While the artists were busy painting nature, kids scurried about in the grass trying to catch insects and then inspect them, with help from the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center.

DPNC educator Diane McCarthy said she hopes the activity will instill in kids a sense of "curiosity and wonder and interest, because some people will look at and say, 'Ew, bugs, yuck!'" But she said the conversation changes when kids start hearing about the importance of bees, butterflies and other insects.

Taking a break from insect-catching, three girls stopped at McCarthy's table to peer through colorful magnifying classes at the spiracles and exoskeleton of the Madagascar hissing cockroach McCarthy brought.

Further back in the park, 6-year-old Madison Lee sat at a picnic table eating lunch, her right cheek adorned with a rainbow butterfly. She was there with her grandmother and great-grandmother.

Her grandmother Cheryl Lawrence wants to see the park used for more events, saying, "I think it would be a good idea if different groups could come here, especially in the summer on a regular basis."

e.moser@theday.com