My new fave thing to do at the beach: sand sculptures!
Working with plaster last semester opened me up to creating 3D forms using wet-dry and powdery material, so I gave sand sculpting a go while on vacation this week.
I started digging and came up with a mound that just seemed to ask for a face. Since it was November 1, the start of the undas festival, I wanted to do something in honor of the dead. All the funerary paraphernalia of Egypt and Ancient Rome from last sem’s Art History class came back to me and I ended up with a figure in a resting pose with eyes closed.
I initially did a full body outline but ran out of time (I started at around 2pm, and people were already crowding about on their afternoon/sunset walk at 4pm).
It still came out pretty big — a low relief sand piece with hair bursting out to the waves.
It was my first ever public art, and I was both shy and excited to get feedback from people passing by. My first “audience” was a cute French man in a hat who lingered over my shoulder, smiled and said, “Very beautiful.” Don’t know if he was talking about the piece or me (haha! I should’ve asked).
But seeing happy faces and even people stopping by to take photos was nice — my sandman was connecting to someone other than myself! Yay.
Of course there was also the matter of kids playing with it and wanting to step on it. I was surprised I didn’t get flustered over this. My old self would’ve barked at them to safeguard my work, but I guess that’s one thing ephemeral or temporary art teaches us: to just enjoy the now.
🙂
Attempt number two was more ambitious: I wanted to make a fish that seemed to swim out of the sand.
I didn’t realize making the fin stand would be very difficult with sand, so I had to adjust the angle of the fish head so the fin could rest at the back.
Again it was a kilig moment when I started feeling people stop by to look, but I was just happy it looked like a fish!
Here are mom and dad enjoying our catch for the day:
Was away for a week and maybe once or twice I regretted not bringing pencils or paints with me, but I’m glad I didn’t because I got to explore and play with the most abundant local material instead– sand! The next time you’re at the beach, give sand sculpting a go — it’s free and your canvas can be as big or small as you need it to be. What a great way to play, play, play. 🙂