SDG who?

Yes, the red name above isn't Jimmy, Michelle, or Tim J. In a rare foray from guest-blogging limbo, I've returned to… share some pictures from my summer vacation.

Wait! Come back! Don't worry, I'm not talking about a slide show of My Trip to the Grand Canyon or anything like that. It's just that last week, vacationing in North Carolina, I contributed an entry to a sand sculpture contest — and won — and, given the subject matter, I thought Jimmy's readers might like to see the results.

See more pictures.

Granted, on this particular blog, graced as it is from time to time with Tim J's stunning artwork, my summer-day diversion isn't as impressive as it might somewhere else, but still, I'm pretty pleased with the results.

This was my first complete crucifixion sculpture; last year I made a couple of unfinished studies that gave me the confidence to tackle this project in spite of having only 75 minutes to do it in before the contest judging.

(The conditions weren't ideal… The tide was high and rising; the time to sculpt sand is when the tide is receding, which allows the best access to wet sand. For awhile I wasn't even going to enter the contest, but eventually I decided to give it a try, and was pleasantly surprised at how well the relatively dry sand above the tide line handled.)

In previous years, I've done sharks, crocodiles, mermaids and sea serpents.

Well, that's all I have to say about that, so… see you next summer!

Comments

[Karen]

Congratulations! That looks fantastic.

[Barbara]

Hi Steve,

I had sent you an e-mail a month ago congratulating you on the new addition. The e-mail bounced. Let me know what your current addy is. I'm still at Pearson.

['thann]

That is really beautiful, and it is so cool that you won. Great job!

And I like the shot of your sea serpent, too. I usd to go to the 4th of July sandsculpting competition on Marco Island in Florida every year -- not to enter, just to be amazed and amused. It must be interesting to create transitory art.

[Ed Peters]

SDG Who? My kids told me what "SDG" stands for--"Silence Dogood", Ben Franklin's first pseudonym.
People with artistic talent baffle me. I just can't see how they can do it. Anyway, congrats.

[SDG]

Ed, SDG stands for Soli Deo Gloria. :-)

Barbara, my old email addy was hard-coded onto my site pages, and got over-harvested by spiders and flooded with spam. My new site has a Contact Us form -- if you write to me there, I'll reply back, and you'll have my new addy. :-)

Looks beautiful, SDG! Keep up the good work! God bless you!

[Tim J.]

Wow, Steven, I didn't know you were an artist!

Congratulations on your contest win. It sounds like you know your sand.

[Maureen]

Wow. You are so multi-talented!

I'm just happy when the castle stays up....

[Edward]

Steven, isn't it cool when your initials have a double meaning? :-) My initials are EMC; my parents used to relate it to Einstein's famous formula E=MC^2.

[David B.]

75 minutes?!!!

Steven, I once entered a Lego building contest, and it took me 3 hours to build the winning model!

I am put to shame. ;-(

[David B.]

SDG,

How big is that thing? It looks to be about 10 feet across and 13 feet long.

[Gene Branaman]

Very cool, Steven! How long does it take you to plan these out? Or do you just think them up on the spot?

[SDG]

The figure isn't actually much larger than life size -- I'm guessing if he could stand up he'd maybe be seven feet tall.

The head is definitely disproportionately large, I'd like to say I planned it that way so that the proportions would look better when viewed from the feet, but it was an accident.

The torso and the legs aren't in right proportion, either literally or visually. It's something I'll work on correcting next time. (Also I noticed that the cross piece on the cross is off center to Jesus' right!)

I don't spend a lot of time planning. I have a picture in my head, and I work from that, and whatever doesn't look right I play with until it does. With this subject, obviously, the basic structure is a given; from there it's just my own understanding of anatomy and the extent to which the sand cooperates with what I want it to do.

The main structure took about an hour. After that I added the titulus, worked on the hands, and touched up other areas until the judges came around.

Yes, I like it that my initials also stand for Soli Deo Gloria -- and that I can type them in one motion of the four fingers of one hand, in order, from left to right, shift-S-D-G. SDGSDGSDG It makes for a great user name! :-)

[Arlo]

Ed, From some of your comments these last few days, I would just like to ask you, are you always in a "mood" or is that part of your shtick?

[Cory]

That's amazing!! Very beautiful. You are extremely talented, and congratulations on coming in first!

[Ed Peters]

time will tell, arlo. maybe.