Comments on: yo

yo

elemenopee — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 18:54:11 -0800

seriously, your sandcastle sucks

By: mervin_shnegwood

mervin_shnegwood — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:00:08 -0800

Those are amazing. Thanks.

By: NotMyselfRightNow

NotMyselfRightNow — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:17:00 -0800

Wow.

By: rodo

rodo — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:26:59 -0800

My old Santa Cruz friend, Jim Deneven, would always amaze us with his work of scale when dealing with sand.

By: LeLiLo

LeLiLo — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:27:40 -0800

your sandcastle sucks ... but all I had to work with was a crushed paper cup and a plastic spoon....

By: birdsquared

birdsquared — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:30:03 -0800

Or, if you prefer your amazing creations in the winter, there's stuff like this

By: MrLint

MrLint — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 19:40:29 -0800

http://www.chino.com/vids/sand.wmv

By: H. Roark

H. Roark — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:00:43 -0800

how do they do this stuff? I mean for example this one should fall.

By: painquale

painquale — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:09:34 -0800

I respect the technical skill that went into these, but many of them are pretty ugly. I mean, was this one really necessary? I like the architectural ones best.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:13:24 -0800

well, I can scratch that off my list of things I want to do on the beach... very very nice link, thanks.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:15:09 -0800

how do they do this stuff? I mean for example this one should fall. I don't know about these guys, but I've seen tv clips of competitive sand sculptors using sprayable fixative, but I don't know if that actually helps to hold things together that much (might just be to stop little bits from blowing off in high wind).

By: [insert clever name here]

[insert clever name here] — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:16:02 -0800

I mean, was this one really necessary? For a moment, I thought it was a wedge of cheese and the kid was wearing a cheesehead hat. And I was very sad that Wisconsin cheesehead culture had made it into sand sculpting art.

By: rolypolyman

rolypolyman — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:21:16 -0800

Tht big bully, pushing me around with FPP words like that

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:22:17 -0800

This kind of thing makes me feel very, very sad that I have no talent whatsoever.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 20:44:45 -0800

painquale, these are professionals -- no doubt the local McDonald's hired them to do that sculpture in front of their store. As such, consider this a portfolio. Certainly most of them seem to have been done for hire in various commercial settings. I think this is one of those play ethic things.

By: skyscraper

skyscraper — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 21:03:18 -0800

Note that they call what they do sand sculptures, not castles. I'm with painquale, I'd like to see the technical chops directed towards buildings, so lelilo and I could compare their stuff with what we can do.

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 21:06:26 -0800

Elmer's glue mixed in with wet sand and/or a dilute solution sprayed on afterwards. Such types of white glue are water soluable and bio-degradable so that the sculptures eventually will turn back into a pile of sand.

By: [insert clever name here]

[insert clever name here] — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 21:34:25 -0800

Off Topic, but I just recently realized how dark the elmer's glue logo is.

By: ahughey

ahughey — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 23:11:06 -0800

On Elmer's name and logo:

Shortly thereafter, the glue was repositioned under the name "Elmer's Glue-All", after Elmer, the spouse of Borden's corporate symbol, Elsie the cow.

Sounds bad for old Elmer, but then there's this:

Do you use animals when making glue?
No, Elmer's does not use animals or animal parts to make glue. Our products are made from synthetic materials and are not derived from processing horses, cows or any other animals.

I guess the

By: ahughey

ahughey — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 23:11:52 -0800

I guess the logo isn't quite as dark as you may think.

By: jewzilla

jewzilla — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 23:13:49 -0800

And strangely, it's made of cow-free polyvinyl acetate. It's rather like a tuna can with a picture of a dolphin on the lid.

By: painquale

painquale — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 23:27:01 -0800

Yeah, dhartung, I'm sure the sculpture was commissioned (this one too), but did they have to make it so ugly? Many of the others aren't much better. Some are beautiful, but most others.... It'd be pretty cool to come across this one on a beach.

By: Devils Slide

Devils Slide — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 23:27:05 -0800

I came across the world of pro (actually more like semi-pro) sandcastle builders a few years ago. There are a few of them who actually make a living doing it: "We are the Sons of the Beach (SoBs) of South Padre Island, Texas and we have acquired a small amount of fame in our tiny fishpond - mostly by creating eye-catching sand sculpture. We really know how to have fun on the beach and in a sand box. In fact, we can have fun any place there's sand. And the good news is that you can find sand just about anywhere. Not content to keep all the fun to ourselves, we are constantly searching for new ways to spread it around, either by displaying our skills or passing them on to others.We've written a book on how to build a better sand castle, designed and manufactured a set of sand carving tools to go with it and taught literally thousands of beach lovers how to build a better sand castle. Our team of world-class master sculptors has built demo sculptures all over the planet. We specialize in beach wedding sand sculpture and we also offer a fun service to meeting planners - corporate team building exercises - on South Padre Island beaches. We do some other things too - all of them fun." --Sons of the Beach Here's a listing of talented sandsculptors along with their websites -- http://www.sandcastlecentral.com/sclptrs/lessons.html. Enjoy.

By: scrim

scrim — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 23:29:26 -0800

I read about this in Ranger Rick years and years ago, I believe.

By: Devils Slide

Devils Slide — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 23:55:39 -0800

Oh, and for the best of the best check out the contest photos (btw it hasn't been updated for a couple of years) http://www.sandcastlecentral.com/links/contestpics1.html

By: rdr

rdr — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 00:17:33 -0800

I used to live in Santa Cruz. One summer there was an amazing sandbar in Cowells's Cove. There was sand stretching out to the middle of the cove. The sand gave us snappy little inside waves near shore and long, long waves from the mouth of the cove to the beach. The best thing it gave us was waves in the middle of summer when the ocean is supposed to be dead flat. One of the oddities that appeared with that magic sand were sand drawings. Some were primitive. Some were elaborate and large. I never really thought about who did them. Thank you rodo for giving me a hint to the solution of a mystery I didn't even know I had wandering around in the back of my mind.

By: peacay

peacay — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 03:09:12 -0800

The artists invest so much in these......knowing they have a short shelf life. A bit like the sidewalk chalk artists. That must be so ummm.....affecting or disturbing or or sad or something. What ColdChef said. Nice link elemenopee, thanks.

By: borq

borq — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 06:43:42 -0800

dutch yearly contest: they use only sand and water. it's sand from a river and has a plated structure (where sea-sand is granular) and is much more solid.. no fixatives.. It can stan through rain and storm but no drunk morons ;) belgian wild west skultures :S more

By: RightsaidFRED

RightsaidFRED — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 07:37:40 -0800

some people have too much time on their hands. others live near beaches. where these two groups colide, castles like this are formed. I'm impressed. today all I plan on doing is looking at the web.

By: furiousxgeorge

furiousxgeorge — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:46:51 -0800

Peacay: if you are looking for a less depressing way to think about it, do some research on Buddhist Sand Mandalas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala "To symbolize impermanence (a central teaching of Buddhism), after many weeks or months of creating the intricate pattern, the entire work is usually placed in a body of running water to spread the blessings of the Mandala."