What is more reminiscent of holidays than building sandcastles on the beach? Not that everyone thinks of them in the same way. For many, sand is the perfect media for expressing their art as sculptures, and some of these are truly mind-blowing in their complexity.
Sand art is the practice of modeling sand into an artistic form, such as sculpture. The two basic building ingredients, sand and water are available in abundance on a beach. 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 and clay elements that help lock the irregular shaped sand grains together.
These people have a real gift for the creation of awesome structures, though they obviously know how impermanent these can be. 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. Some sandcastle artists are purists, using no artificial materials or heavy machinery.
