Sand Art- The Reader

Thanks to D.G. Hudson for the inspiration / suggestion.  An open book, indeed...along with a reader absorbed in its pages.

What book its it?  Why, it's Rudy Toot-Toot, by yours truly!  The sand version slightly thicker than the print or Kindle versions. 

The sculpture is slightly incomplete (about 95%)...a thunderstorm popped up and I had to abandon my efforts in the final details in order to not get hit by lightning.  I guess I'm not the world's most dedicated sand artists, but at least I survived to sculpt again.  It may be a while, since we are leaving first thing in the morning.

Here's a play by play on how I created the reader:

Step 1- Make a rough outline.

Step 2- Make a huge pile of sand.  This took 15 minutes.

Step 3- Add water.  I dumped about 8 buckets full of water on the pile.  The water makes the sand stick together better.

Step 4- Make a rough shape.  Basically, remove sand until I have the shape I want.  It's rare that I add more on to the pile.

Step 4- Front view.  The head is exaggerated, because I will whittle it away.  Start big and refine the sculpture as detail is added.

Step 5- Detail.  I have a paint scraper to make cuts and fine lines.  Making angled cuts at the bottom where the sculpture meets the beach creates shadows, which add depth to the work and keep it from getting washed out in the pictures.

Front view.

Head-on.  This was bigger, so I could put more detail in the face than my mermaid had.

Side view.

Reading over his shoulder- Rudy Toot-Toot by Rick Daley!

Angled view, I like the way the shadows fall on this one.  My son Vic is in the background.

The total effort = 1 hour 15 minutes.  The hardest part was taking the pictures...I couldn't see my phone screen at all in the beach sunlight, so I could only hope a few of them turned out!  Then, I almost wiped them all off my phone, which was giving low data warnings.  Luckily they survived...

Sand Art- Mermaid Edition

Many pictures of one sculpture today.  This sand mermaid is probably the most intricate sculpture I've attempted to date.  It took about an hour and twenty minutes from start (piling up a bunch of sand) to finish (the cross-hatch lines on her tail and fins).  Now I'm brainstorming for the next sculpture...I think I have one more in me before we head home.  Any suggestions?

Sand Art- 2012 Edition

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know I love to make sand sculptures at the beach.  I'm no professional sand artist, but I know how to have fun with it.  My past works range from Bugs Bunny, the Sphinx, and alligators, to Kris Kringle napping under an evergreen tree and sand swimmers.

So here we are in Hilton Head for our annual vacation, and this is what the tide brought in...

This frog was my first creation...

Then I made a dragonfly for him to snack on...

...while a hungry cobra eyes the Frog!

A Vacation Recap, with Sand Art...

What better way to escape the dreary monotony of winter, where the family is cooped up together in the house, than a Florida vacation?  One where the family (including the neurotic schnauzer) is cooped up together in the car for a 14-hour drive to Destin, FL (and back).

To put this in perspective, you must first understand how we fit in to the three types of car travelers: Road Warriors, The Casual Family, and Griswolds.

Griswolds will take the longest route. They will tackle a 14-hour drive in a cool 36 hours, stopping at roadside attractions such as the Dinosaur Museum just off I-65 in Tennessee (NOTE: Or was it Kentucky?  Is there a difference?).  We are not Griswolds.

The Casual Family will stop frequently to dine, preferring sit-down restaurants where you wait for a table, wait for your food, wait for your check, and add 90 minutes to your drive time because you stopped for lunch but forgot to get gas, requiring another stop 15 minutes later.  Then they will stop again 15 minutes after that because the four cups of coffee and/or iced tea they drank while waiting for their meals will come a-knockin.  They may even stay at a hotel, splitting the 14-hour drive across two days.  We are not a casual family.

We are Road Warriors.  We don't start looking for a gas station until the light comes on (NOTE: My kids are convinced that once the light comes on, you can only go three more feet before you run out of gas.  The panic in their voices can be quite entertaining.)  We pack a cooler of food and determine our rest stops by the strongest bladder, not the weakest one.  We have a Honda Odyssey with a DVD player and headsets for the kids so we don't have to listen to their movies, and an iPod adaptor for the radio so we can out-sing our favorite bands for hundreds of miles.

We made it to Destin in just over 14 hours, meeting up with my in-laws, who arrived the week before.  The first few days the weather was ideal...about 80 degrees and sunny.  In what may be the biggest display of irony I have ever witnessed, Ohio actually had slightly better weather than Florida, reaching into the mid-80s, leading me to the obvious conclusion that if we ever move away from Ohio, it will immediately become a tropical paradise.

The kids were the only members of our party insane enough to swim in the cold waters of the gulf, but I did enjoy the beach time by trying to make sand sculptures.  The white sand of the gulf beaches has a different consistency than the dense sand of Hilton Head, and I had many collapsed frogs.  I did make a swimmer, and while it's not my best work, it was a satisfying way to kill an hour.

When the gulf winds kicked up and blew at 25 MPH for three days straight, making kite flying dangerous and Smashball damn near impossible, we spent time in the pool, which was heated and somewhat sheltered from the winds.  When the clouds came in, the ladies went shopping and the boys when to the Air Force Armament Museum by the Eglin AFB, which was totally cool. 

We made the 14-hour drive home in 13.5 hours, because we are awesome.  We were amazed to see that spring had indeed sprung while we were away...trees and shrubs around the house were sporting buds, flowers, and leaves, and my lawn had opened its doors to every manner of weed known to man, which should provide fodder for some fun blog posts about yard work in the coming weeks.

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Sand Art- Kris Kringle Hits the Beach

All of the other sand sculptures this week were practice sessions for my special The Man in the Cinder Clouds sculpture...it was Christmas in July on Hilton Head Island!

Here we have Kris Kringle hanging out under the branches of an evergreen tree.  I wanted to add some other characters, but didn't have the time.  I also wanted to make a fireplace with his boots / legs in it, and an evergreen ranch and burnt chair leg on the hearth and a stocking hanging and a dollhouse and pair of boots...Maybe next year.

Sand Art- What a Croc!

Friday was the last day at the beach.  Yesterday we were up at 5:30 am, on the road by 6:45am, and thanks to loads of traffic that at one time required 90 minutes to move forward 10 miles, we made it home by 9:15pm.

I made two sculptures on Friday.  First was an alligator, but it may really be a crocodile (NOTE: Crikey!) because I tried to show some teeth outside its mouth.  I think that's the major difference between the two, aside from the spelling of their names, but I'm not willing to consult Wikipedia right now so someone will have to fact-check me in the comments.  The final sculpture will be posted later today...

Sand Art with a Porpoise

Today's art has meaning, a theme. It exists for a porpoise...

I had to do this quickly, the tide was coming in.  It's still just a warm-up for the end of the week Cinder Clouds sculptures, which may not be posted if they totally suck.

A porpoise surfaced at the beach

Hey buddy, got any fish?

Some other sand artist is at work today...

And doing a damn good job!  This was there before I started.

Sant Art: The Sphinx

Here are some pictures of my first sand sculpture: The Sphinx.  I'm warming up for a Cinder Clouds-themed sculpture later in the week.  I think a croc / alligator will invade the beach too. 

The Sphinx lasted about an hour before we watched the tide destroy it, which of course is half the fun.

After I had completed the Sphinx, my kids were helping me build the perimeter wall when several other kids came by to see the sculpture.  Then they left and reappeared with shovels and quickly got to work helping us.

"Cool, we have slave labor," I said.  My younger son picked up on that and relayed that little factiod to every other person who came by.

Sand Art

I'm going on vacation next week, and one thing I like to do at the beach is build sand sculptures.  I need suggestions for new things to build.  If you have any ideas, please leave a comment.  Here are a few examples from vacations past:

Sand Shark

Bugs Bunny

Surf's Up Doc

That's all, Folks!

Last Day of Vacation

My artwork from yesterday's trip to the beach. 

Vacation Recap- Part 2

Monday morning we woke up like it was a regular school / work day, but it wasn't. I took the day off work, my wife didn't have to work because her office was closed this week, and the kids are out of school. It was King's Island day.

King's Island is an amusement park near Cincinnati, OH. It lacks some of the mind-blowing awesomeness afforded to Cedar Point in Sandusky, but that's not really a fair comparison. Cedar Point is one of the best amusement parks in the world. It's in a league of its own. Plus King's Island is an hour closer, so it's awesomeness is padded with convenience.

We went with our neighbor and her three kids. Altogether it was me, two ladies (many cool stories could start that way), and five children, ages 10, 8, 7, 5, and 4 (coolness factor henceforth evaporates. Also, see prior post on cool (or lack thereof)).

We started off with The Fairly Odd Coaster in the Nickelodeon kids' area. After waiting for 30 minutes, they announced that they were closing the ride. The bloodthirst among the populace was palpable. They offered a quick addendum: "To put another car on the track."

Murmers of approval wafted through the crowd. This should make it go faster. Eventually.

An hour had passed and we finished our first 45-second ride. We were skeptical as to how the rest of the day would go, but for the most part it was awesome. I only experienced one other line as long, and it was for a coaster that you ride inverted. It flips to the bottom of the track, so it's like you are flying. Pretty cool experience, and worth the wait. But not as cool as the Diamondback.

The Diamondback is a new attraction that just opened in 2009. Its first hill is 230 feet high, and the drop is 215 feet. The next hill is 191 feet. And there are nine more after that, four of them over 100 feet.

The Diamondback is the biggest, baddest roller coaster ever to hit King's Island. It's not the best in the world, but it's good enough. You go up the first hill at such a steep angle it's like you're laying on your back as you watch the scenery fall away to your sides. Then you go down.

I think it's the angles of incline and decline that give the ride its umph. When you go up, you go almost straight up, and the crest is very narrow before you plunge straight down. Words can't really describe what it's like, but I like you people so I'll try:

It's a Triple Scoop of Awesome with Hot F*@% Yeah Sauce, Whipped Ass, and Nuts on top. Your Nuts. Unless you are a roller coaster virgin, and then it's your Popped Cherry.

Wow, I guess you can put it into words. Who knew?

We got hungry and decided on Chick-Fil-A for lunch. We thought a fast-food chain would have the distribution channels in place to move a large supply of food on-site for preparation and sale, and they would have a low cost of goods sold so they would be the more economical eatery.

We thought WRONG.

The King's Island Chick-Fil-A charges $7.89 for a combo meal. That's a sandwich and fries. The drink is another $2. I don't remember exactly what I said when the cashier broke me this news, but I think it contained an f-bomb. Apparently no one ever told that cow that runs the place the Laws of the Combo Meal. Drinks are included. Three combos with drinks and a kid's meal cost $44. Or to put that in more comparative terms, the $7 of food you would normally pay $20 for cost $44.

For dinner we pooled our resources and both families at together at You Call This Pizza? The proprietors probably called it something else, but I think my name is a better description. But since it was only $43 to feed three adults and five kids, it all tasted fine to me.

We closed the park down, staying through the 10pm fireworks show. It was officially Tuesday by the time we got home. We were tired, but it was well worth it. The kids had fun and were well-behaved (for the most part).

Next time we're going to Cedar Point.

Vacation Recap- Part 1

The weekend is over, we're home again and getting back in the swing of things. The trip started up Garrettsville, Ohio (where?) near Aurora (where?) and Ravenna (where?). These are small towns east of Cleveland (oh...Cleveland. Thanks!).

My uncle lives in Garrettsville (remember, near Aurora and Ravenna?) and his daughter just turned one. I should probably mention my aunt here, too, since she's the mother and really did most of the work. It's just that I'm related to my uncle by blood and her by marriage, so I mentioned him first. But I don’t want anyone to feel left out.

The party was a lot of fun, mainly eating and drinking and playing cornhole while the kids played football and soccer. And a bonfire. I got to see my great grandmother and great grandpa, other aunt, uncles, and cousins I only see about once a year at events such as this one. As an added bonus, my Dad was in town and made a surprise visit. We knew about it beforehand but had to have a non-disclosure agreement in place so nobody would know he was coming. I think that was in case he had to back out.

We were going to camp out. By which I mean sleep in a tent in my uncle's backyard while otherwise enjoying all of the amenities of a comfortable home. Due to one brief mid-afternoon rain shower and more than one beer, the tent never got set up. So we slept on air-mattresses in the basement (it was a finished basement, very nice).

We spent the morning trying to get Wii Fit before loading up and heading home. I am not Wii Fit, at least not when it comes to ski jumping. I'm better with Yoga. Apparently my seven year old son has the Wii body of a twenty-six year old. I don't know what to make of that.

We have a GPS named Lila, and she usually tells us where we need to go, in her sweet British accent. Lila smoked some really strong crack before we headed home, though, and instead of guiding us back the way we came, the bitch took us on a convaluted tour through the greater Akron-Canton area before leading us to the road home (I-71 south, in this case).

The rest of Sunday was rest and relaxation, and a little bit of getting ready for Monday and our trip to King’s Island…