Don’t miss the
10th Edition of Wonders of Sand
at Beauchamp Lake Park July 3rd, 4th, 10th and 11th, 2010
Sand Sculpting
A special kind of sand for a very special kind of sculpture!
Sand sculptors are incredible artists and can create true-to-life replicas of know objects and characters with incredible details but in order to do so, they need to work with a very special type of sand. Although the sand used for sculptures might look like the type of sand found on beaches, one might be surprised to learn the “special” type of sand used is made of square grains of sand, compared to “beach sand” which is normally made of round grains of sand. This special “flat” shape allow the grains to better embed themselves on top of one another, allowing the sculptor to compact them into a stronger base structure.
Depending on the weather conditions, the care given to the preparation of the basic sand bloc and the maintenance of the finished shaped, these gigantic sculptures can last many weeks, even many months. Certain exhibits/events like the one in Touquet, Paris-Plage lasts from early April to the end of August… that’s almost 5 months!
Many tons of sand for one single structure!
Some of the structures created for the event are not made from a few bags of sand but from many TONS of sand! To recreate the character from last year’s exhibit, the lion king named Maracumba, our sculptors had to spend more than 60 hours working on almost 30 tons of sand for that single structure. WOW!
Compacting, the most important step of the process
One of the first steps of sand sculpting, which happens to be the most important one, is the compacting of the sand.
Once the structure’s wooden boxes are built – boxes of different shapes can be overlapped to create the desired height and shape of the frame needed to build the structure – the sand can then be transferred to the boxes to be compacted. That process is done by adding and watering the sand regularly so that the boxes can be filled as tightly as they can be.
Once the process is completed, sculptors can then start to create their vision by starting from the top and working their way down.
Tools you can find at home!
Besides the huge trucks and heavy equipment needed to load the large quantity of sand needed to build these mega-structures, most of the tools used to sculpt the sand can easily be found at home or in your own kitchen! It is very common to see shovels, rakes and pails during the early stages of the sculpting process, but other tools such as knives, scissors, spoons and even straws can also be used to obtain the desired effects.
