Certain themes come up again and again in sand sculpture, the Roman empire iss one of them. I suppose the sand as a material lends itself to subjects which are also ephemeral and its colour and structure gives a certain ye oldie world look suitable to monumental imagery.
The year was 1999 and the Zeebruggee sand festival had this as it's theme. Not much space for creativity, just representations and illustrations of the sculptures we were asked to make.
There were large sculptures of the Colosseum, Architectural wonders and that guy Hannibal with the elephants. All made from sand which was brought to the beach.
Vestal Virgin
My main sculpture to make was one of the Vestal Virgins. In Ancient Rome these were prepubescent girls committed to the Priesthood for 30 years with a vow of chastity and then turfed out only to be replaced by another nymph. The pension plan was pretty good which they made them a catch for any suitor. (There's a little history lesson for you)
Just sand and water..... and lots of glue
I wanted to make her with the delicacy that the coarse sand usually doesn't allow so, I used certain cheats which I developed.
Usually when you finish a sand sculpture and want to preserve it for a long time you spray it with a dilute mix of PVA glue and water. This holds the surface grains together and stops the rain and wind quickly eroding its surface. It doesn't add strength to the piece but in my case and with many layers on one side of her clothing it allowed for the other side to dry out in the sunshine and the loose grains of sand to be brushed away revealing a fabric around her face super thin and dainty.
I can't remember now why I did it but I gave her fangs and a cloak so she had appearance of a vampire. Maybe it was just me trying to inject some creativity into the project or was inspired by my reading of Dracula at the time.
Shine on you crazy diamond
One of my fondest memories of the project was travelling from 4am on trains to the town of Virton in the south of Belgium to catch a total eclipse of the sun with my friend Niall and Killian. Zeebrugge had around 96% but it was so worth it to travel many miles to get to see and experience that amazing sight. I'll probably make a post about it some day.
It was a nice project overall and the results, although not the most amazing work was pretty impressive. The organisers even had fire in the sculpture where Rome was being destroyed but for some reason Nero wasn't fiddling.
Ps
Sorry It's been a while since my last proper post. Work had me very busy up to now. The job worked out well but it took some longs days through some very cold weather to complete . A post will be made in the future about the project.
Thank you for all sticking with me and if you are new to my blog you can check out some of my earlier posts below.
Making planters- wood
Mythical Myths - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon.
@ammonite