I used to play in the sand all day long when we went to the beach as a kid. I grew up in New Hampshire (which boasts of thirteen miles of coastline), Hampton Beach was the place to go and I imagine it still is even though I have not been back there in many moons. The water is cold by anyone’s standards. For example, today’s air temperature at Hampton Beach is 66 degrees and the water temperature is 62.1 degrees, not exactly tropical. My brother and I would body surf all day long, but when we got sick of that we would grab a bucket and start digging. It’s sandcastle time my friend!
We had a few caveats; the castle needed to have a moat, and it needed to have lots of tunnels and it had to be close enough to the oncoming high tide so we had to move pretty fast. Making sandcastles at the beach have a couple of tried and true techniques, and I’m sure these techniques have impressive names for the professionals (yes there are professional sandcastle makers, most likely they call themselves Sand Sculptors – and rightly so, when you check some of their work). Like most things these days the art of making sandcastles has become an industry of sorts. Meaning, there are products to buy (sand carving/sculpting tools), books to read, and videos to watch.
My favorite technique is what I call the Gaudi (as in Antoni Gaudi, the Spanish Architect) Approach; where you drip wet sand on top of itself so is create soft-serve towers. The other technique is what I call the Adobe Approach; where everything is achieved using sand blocks – made from containers tightly packed with moist sand. But who cares what I have to say about the Art of Making Sandcastles, let’s hear some tips from the pro’s:
Wet The Sand!!!
Not just wet, but really wet. The sand MUST be wet through and through if you want it to hold its shape. You can’t have too much water. It will run out and find it’s own natural saturation point. The idea here is: different sand, different saturation point, but all sand must be saturated!
Pack The Sand!!!
The tighter you pack the sand, the better it will hold together. Pound it, smack it, pat it down tight, hit it, strike it, batter it down, thump it, pummel it till it’s tight, clobber it, sock it, beat it with anything you have, give it a wallop ¦ get the idea?
Take It From The Top And Work Inside Out!!
Always work from the top down!! Unless you enjoy doing things twice. Once you complete an area, you don’t want to go back up and re-work it thus having to re-clean the completed sections below and risk ruining lower details: same thing with details closer to the center of your creation. Don’t make an outer wall and then try to move to the middle for a walkway: it messes up your wall when you try to get sand out of the middle.
GO Slooooooooooow!!
Patience is more important than talent, especially when you’re learning. Remove small amounts of sand at a time. This is not clay! You may not think so, but it is very difficult and in most cases impossible to replace sand on the initial pile once it is gone. If you are trying to pack sand after you are into the sculpture, what do think happens to your completed work? And remember: It is a rare occasion if ever that a detail can be created with just one pass of a tools. Make several passes to remove more and more sand until you reach just the point you want.
Pile High-Pile Wide!!!
Start with a pile a bit larger than you think you will need.We must then make sure that there is ample sand for the creation to exist before we carve it in the first place! As we said above, it is difficult to add sand to our pile once we are fairly well into the piece.
Have Fun!!!
Don’t get frustrated.
If you fight these laws of sand sculpting, the laws will win: You will begin to experience those other laws of Mr. Murphy’s as they pertain to sand sculpting: and as we know from all things, they will catch up to you soon enough anyway.
Get a straw!
These are technically referred to as manually operated pneumatic sand blasters, it is used for a specialized form of sand blasting! We use it to blow loose sand away from sculpture details. When you direct the flow of air, it removes only the loose sand, leaving the new detail made in the packed sand right where you want it. Saves the eyes too!
(Thanks to Can You Dig It Sand Tools for their expert advice)
Related Links:
Can You Dig It Sand Tools | How to Build The Perfect Sandcastle
Sandsational Sand Sculpting
List of Sandcastle Contests Around the World
Coastal Living | Sand Castles 101
Sandcastles: Great Projects: From Mermaids to Monuments [book]
Sandcastles Made Simple [book]
Tags:
educational,
family fun,
kids activity,
simple kids projects
