You will have to forgive me as I am not exactly sure who this sand sculpture was supposed to depict. It was made for the 2016 Sneek sand sculpture festival in the Netherlands and I was asked to create a statue of a famous hero from the area. I never heard of him but was told a few stories for inspiration and then given the freedom to come up with something.
Now, for the life of me, I can't remember who it was supposed to be. I have tried to re-research and it was either Junker-Balthasar-Brunnen or Michiel DeRuyter, maybe one of my Dutch readers can shed some light on the matter.
All I know
I know he was some sort of guy with a big sword and quite tall. He was also like a knight or something, I really can't remember any of the details even though at the time I am sure I was very intrigued by him. As a sculpture, I was pleased with how it turned out and so we will just talk about it as it looks. I wanted to play with the idea that there were layers to him and that although he had the structure of a man you could not fully understand him as he was a mystery. Myth or man, who knows.
Start to finish
Usually, when I begin a carving I block out the main form, just so I can get a feel for the sand, work out where the main features are and remove as much sand as possible. The boxy-like structure of his head is an excellent example of this technique and is a good starting point from which to then carve the rest of the sculpture. It looks like a robot at this stage and I have a good idea of the overall composition. I know that the sculpture lies within an inch of the surface. All I need to do then is remove the sand which doesn't look like the sculpture I want to make.
At this stage, I also get to know where the weight of the sand wants to go. Everything needs to be supported in one way or the other and transferred down till it gets down to the bottom of the piece. It takes some intuition and I still have plenty of collapses when I push it too far. The blocking out process helps to get a good read on what the sand wants to do and I create invisible arches and buttresses to hopefully keep the sculpture standing. That is pretty much sand sculpture 1 0 1.
This sculpture was very vertical, a testament to the quality of sand and compaction. Working on his feet was, I remember, a very worrying experience. If he decided at that stage to fall this could have very well been my last sculpture.
inspiration from itself
When I had carved the blocky figure I stood back and got inspiration from the fact that it looked a bit like a knight. I could very well have just carved in the suit of armour and be done but I liked the blockiness and decided to have some fun and not be too literal.
I decided to leave him somewhat blocky but then as I worked down the figure start to soften the form into curves. I was happy with that but I thought it needed a bit more contract and so turned the whole thing into a shell or suit of armour with some elements of his body carved beneath.
Even though the structure at the back is for support I think it frames the piece nicely. To make it a bit more interesting I sprayed water on it till it started to melt and flow into drips. A simple technique but a quick texture change
Image manipulator
I usually don't do much photoshopping of my pictures because I see them as documentation. Here, I really liked the pose of the sculpture and the pose of fellow carver Marieke Van Der Meer. You may remember her from such sculptures as this one. She has developed into an amazing sculptor and it is always great to have her on a project.
The image was spoiled by the background since the site was still a mess. I did a bit of a digital cleanup just to put manners on the lead photo for this post.
Here is the original. As you can see I didn't change the sculpture or have to improve the beauty of Marieke. I really like how the image turned out. Always nice to have a size reference for a sculpture.
Ps
Thanks for reading. I use PeakD to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, amongst other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Hive Blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Renaissance - sand sculpture
Bondish, James Bondish - sand sculpture
Psycho - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon
@ammonite
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I am also starting to create NFTs of my sculptures and welcome you to my gallery where you can own a bit of ephemeral sculpture history.