Seal Recue Ireland - sand sculpture

This will be the last of this type of post for a while ( happily). Another one-day demonstration carve with some workshops thrown into the mix.

I had cut back on my international travel in 2018 to spend more time at home with my young son and wife but, this type of one-day project was a nice little earner I could still do and not be away from home too long. Balancing one's art. the makings of money and family life are a thing that I believe most artists juggle with.

Ireland's only seal sanctuary had asked me to help with their fundraising efforts. Seal Rescue Ireland is a great little organisation that takes in sick and abandoned seal pups and other sick adults and nurses them back to health so they can be reintroduced back into the wild. They oversee the whole of the island of Ireland including the North which if you know your geo politics is still part of Great Britain (Splitters !). The sanctuary is in Courtown, Co Wexford and I have visited it several times over the years. When they came to me to ask for my services I was glad to help.

The plan was that I would go to a few beaches during the summer and set up an area where they would have a little information centre and I would do some sand sculpture workshops to help raise funds.

They asked could I do a quick demo of their logo, which was straightforward enough and then spend the rest of the afternoons teaching children and families how to do their own pieces.

I enjoyed the projects but they were not exactly photo-worthy. So I have minimal images to show. Some days they released a seal back to the wild which was interesting to see. Making sure a wild animal will still want to go back into the ocean after treatment takes a lot of care and skill and their team is very dedicated. These are not pets and in captivity they are given the room they need to get better.

The demo piece was easy enough and mostly took about an hour to create. Then, I roped out a little area and helped the children play. Mostly their parents got involved.

As we worked I talked about the seals and why this was such an important service that Seal Rescue Ireland provided.

The way I run workshops is I give a little speech about who I am and what I do for a living then talk a small bit about design and how to start off by compacting the sand. Then I let them get into groups, or go solo and get them going.

I have made many designs as you see below to help give them ideas of what to make. These are very useful as they help me explain how to break anything down into its basic forms and that they should remember to work in 3 dimensions, looking at the sculpture from every angle.

The designs are from very simple to more complex and all about just making things fun.

I provide the class with simple tools like lollypop sticks and brushes and then try and divide my time by giving everyone a one to one on how to achieve what they want to make.

Most children want to do the most complicated of designs but usually, by the end, they settle on making dolphins and turtles. But even with these they get to learn all there is to know about sand sculpture basics and then it is up to them to practice, practice, practice.

It is so cute to see their pride in what they make especially if they are working along with their parents and as I have probably said before it is, many times the parents get the out of it.

The participants gave donations to the rescue people and everyone seemed to have a nice day on the beach, especially when it came to jumping all over what they had done.