Sand art and play - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sand art is the practice of modelling sand into an artistic form, such as a sand brushing, sand sculpture, sandpainting
Sandpainting
Sandpainting is the art of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed, or unfixed sand painting...

, or sand bottles. A sand castle is a type of sand sculpture resembling a miniature building

Building

In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...

, often a castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

.

The two basic building ingredients, sand

Sand

Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...

and water

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

, are available in abundance on a sandy beach

Beach

A beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea, lake or river. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles or cobblestones...

, so most sand play takes place there, or in a sandpit

Sandpit

A sandpit or sandbox is a low, wide container or shallow depression filled with sand in which children can play. Many homeowners with children build sandpits in their backyards because, unlike much playground equipment, they can be easily and cheaply constructed...

. Tidal beaches generally have sand that limits height and structure because of the shape of the sand grains. Good sand sculpture sand is somewhat dirty, having silt

Silt

Silt is granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay whose mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...

and clay

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

that helps lock the irregular shaped sand grains together.

Sand castles are typically made by children, simply for the fun of it, but there are also sand sculpture contests for adults that involve large, complex constructions.

Ukrainian talent contest winner, Kseniya Simonova

Kseniya Simonova

Kseniya Simonova, is the 2009 winner of the TV contest Ukraine’s got Talent, which is part of the Got Talent series. She is a performance artist in sand animation and a philanthropist.-Early life and family:...

, gained worldwide fame and became an online phenomenon with her sand painting which depicted World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

and how her family had been separated by the war.

Construction

Sand grains will not stick together unless the sand is reasonably fine. While dry sand is loose, wet sand is adherent

Adhesion

Adhesion is any attraction process between dissimilar molecular species that can potentially bring them in close contact. By contrast, cohesion takes place between similar molecules....

if the proper amounts of sand and water are used in the mixture. The reason for this is that water forms little ‘bridges’ between the grains of sand when it is damp due to the forces of surface tension

Surface tension

Surface tension is a property of the surface of a liquid that allows it to resist an external force. It is revealed, for example, in floating of some objects on the surface of water, even though they are denser than water, and in the ability of some insects to run on the water surface...

. However if too much water is added the water fills the spaces between the grains, breaking down the bridges and thus lowering the surface tension, resulting in the sand being able to flow more easily and the structure collapsing. According to the BBC TV programme Coast
Coast (TV series)
Coast is a BBC documentary series first broadcast on BBC Two television in 2005. A second series started on 26 October 2006, a third in early 2007 and a fourth in mid-2009...

, the ideal ratio is eight parts dry sand to one part water, (though this may depend on the type of sand).

When the sand dries out or gets wet, the shape of a structure may change and "landslide

Landslide

A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...

s" are common. Furthermore, the mixture of fine (mostly sharper) and coarse sand granules is very important to achieve good "sand construction" results. Fine granules which have been rounded by the natural

Natural

Natural is an adjective that refers to Nature.Natural may refer too:In science and mathematics:* Natural transformation, category theory in mathematics* Natural foods...

influences of sea

Sea

A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...

s, river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

s or fluvial

Fluvial

Fluvial is used in geography and Earth science to refer to the processes associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them...

s, in turn negatively influence the bonding between the individual granules as they more easily slide past each other. Research is thus necessary to find the most suitable sand to achieve an optimal, landslide-free construction.

Shovels and buckets are the main construction tool used in creating sand castles and sand sculptures, although some people use only their hands. Water from the sea to mix with the sand can be brought to the building site with a bucket or other container. Sometimes other materials, such as pieces of wood, are added to reinforce structures.

Sand sculpting as an art form has become very popular in recent years especially in coastal beach areas. Hundreds of annual competitions are held all over the world. Techniques can be quite sophisticated, and record-breaking achievements have been noted in the Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records , is a reference book published annually, containing a collection of world records, both human achievements and the extremes of the natural world...

. Sometimes contests are staged as advertising or promotional events.

Some sandcastle artists are purists, using no artificial materials, formwork

Formwork

Formwork is the term given to either temporary or permanent molds into which concrete or similar materials are poured. In the context of concrete construction, the falsework supports the shuttering moulds.-Formwork and concrete form types:...

, coloring

Pigment

A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...

, adhesive

Adhesive

An adhesive, or glue, is a mixture in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. The types of materials that can be bonded are vast but they are especially useful for bonding thin materials...

or heavy machinery. One such purist is G. Augustine Lynas

G. Augustine Lynas

G. Augustine Lynas is a renowned sculptor of sand sand castles and other ephemeral materials including snow. He also works in concrete, ceramic and most two dimensional media....

, who has been building public sand sculptures for over 50 years. However, in sand sculpting competitions, the rules often require that the finished sculpture be sprayed with a stabilizing coating that preserves it and allows the work to be properly judged and enjoyed by spectators. Coated sculptures can last for months.

Drip castles

A variant on the sandcastle is the drip castle, made by mixing the sand with water and dripping it from a fist held above. Some refer to the technique as "dribbling." When the slurry of sand and water lands on existing sand structures, the effect is Gaudi-esque.

Festivals and competitions

Since 1989, a World Championship in Sand Sculpture has been held in Harrison Hot Springs

Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia

The Village of Harrison Hot Springs is a small community at the southern end of Harrison Lake in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. It is a member of the Fraser Valley Regional District; its immediate neighbour is the District of Kent and included in it, the town of Agassiz. It is a resort...

in Harrison, British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, also known as "Harrisand". The competition has solo, double and team categories. The world's tallest sandcastle was built on Myrtle Beach in South Carolina as part of the 2007 Sun Fun Festival. The structure was 49.55 feet (15.1 m) high. It took 10 days to construct, and used 300 truckloads of sand.

On September 1, 2007, Ed Jarrett completed his world-record 31.7-foot (9.66 m) high sand castle, at the Point Sebago Resort

Resort

A resort is a place used for relaxation or recreation, attracting visitors for holidays or vacations. Resorts are places, towns or sometimes commercial establishment operated by a single company....

in Casco, Maine

Casco, Maine

Farmers found the surface of the town uneven, its hard and rocky soil "tolerably productive." Outlets of ponds, however, provided Casco with good sites for water powered mills. The town had four sawmills, four gristmills, a shook mill, a barrel stave mill, four shingle factories, a carriage factory...

. The "Castle to the Sun" was constructed to raise funds to benefit sick children at Camp Sunshine

Camp Sunshine

Camp Sunshine is a non-profit retreat and camp located on the shore of Sebago Lake, Maine that provides children with life-threatening illnesses and their immediate families hope for the future, as well as immediate help in dealing with a child's chronic illness...

on Sebago Lake

Sebago Lake

Sebago Lake is the deepest and second largest lake in the U.S. state of Maine. The lake is deep at its deepest point, with a mean depth of , covers about in surface area, has a length of and a shoreline length of . The surface is around above sea level, so the deep bottom is below the present...

. He created a 29-foot 3 inch (8.9 m) sand castle in Falmouth, Maine

Falmouth, Maine

Falmouth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 11,185 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area....

in 2003 declared the world's tallest.

An annual competition is held on Siesta Key, Florida

Siesta Key, Florida

Siesta Key is a barrier island off the central western coast of Florida in the United States of America. It is situated between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. A portion of it lies within the city boundary of Sarasota, but the majority of the key is a census-designated place in Sarasota County...

every year. Its fine, white quartz

Quartz

Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...

sand regularly wins comparison rankings of beach sand, yet complex structures are built during the competition.

Professional sand sculpting companies

In recent years many artists have formed companies specifically geared towards creating sand sculptures. These companies have found a niche market with corporate and private clients looking to promote a business or product or simply to wow their guests at a special event. While most of these businesses operate part time, there a few that operate as full time businesses, such as the World Sand Sculpting Academy from the Netherlands, The Sand Sculpture Company located in the US, Sandemons Sand Sculpture Company located in Canada, Sand Cult - Sand Sculpting Company from India, Fitzy Snowman Sculpting, Team Sandtastic, and Sand Scapes in the USA, and Sandinyoureye in the UK, and Sandology in Australia, SANDISSUE World-Class team from US

Other sand games

One of the main attractions of a sandy beach, especially for children, is playing with the sand, as it presents more possibilities than an ordinary sandbox.

One can make a mountain, a pit (encountering clay

Clay

or the water table

Water table

The water table is the level at which the submarine pressure is far from atmospheric pressure. It may be conveniently visualized as the 'surface' of the subsurface materials that are saturated with groundwater in a given vicinity. However, saturated conditions may extend above the water table as...

), canals, tunnels, bridges, a sculpture (representing a person, animal, etc., like a statue, or a scale model

Scale model

A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...

of a building), and many other things.

Tunnels large enough to enter are extremely hazardous; children have been killed when such underground chambers have collapsed under their own weight and instability, or due to the tide coming up or the structure being hit by a wave. Sometimes a dam can be built to hold back the water, or canals can be dug to contain the water.

Burying someone up to his/her neck in sand, or burying oneself, is another popular beach activity.

Construction

Drip castles

Festivals and competitions

Professional sand sculpting companies

Other sand games

See also