Beach Art: Sacrifice

I took my sketchbook to the beach. This time I brought a cheapo set of watercolors. You know, the kind you get in your Christmas stocking when you’re a kid. I used a sand pail and ocean water to paint with.

It was kind of fun sacrificing “real” art materials, though it was hard to paint with the wind blowing and the sand and all.

You can click here to see one of the sand castles we made this trip or, click here to see some sketches from a previous trip.



This is a sketch of a chair and an umbrella. There was actually a guy sitting in the chair but I left him out. After I started the sketch the wind was so strong that he got up and shut the umbrella. What's that all about?? Hey buddy, I'm trying to paint!



I sketched this one sitting on the deck in the afternoon. It's the beach house across the street from us. I don't think anyone was staying there. There was no car in the drive way and no lights on or anything.



Here's another chair. I did a lot of chairs. But what else is there on the beach? Umbrella I guess, but mostly chairs.

By the way, did you click here yet??

Did you miss me? No? Did you even notice I was gone? Oh well that's ok. But I'm back! Where did I go? You ask. The beach, Emerald Island. For a week. Gee, you would think you would have noticed.



We did lots of stuff. Went on a sail boat, went snorkeling, went clamming, cooked the clams, ate the clams (ate some raw too), saw some turtles, saw some dolphins, did a little shopping, and of course... made a sand castle.



We made two sand castles but this is the only one I took photos of. It was about four feet high and was a traditional type of sand castle with a dragon attacking. This is from the back.



This shot is from the side. Alex and I also made a very extra cool sand castle of a mermaid. It was coming out really great. Then the face and chest slid right off. Alex and I both screamed NOOoooo! Everyone looked at us like we were doinks but we had worked pretty hard on it. Then we rebuilt it into a sea which with a crabs body. It wasn't as good but some people came buy and took photos of it anyway. I wonder if they blogged those photos? Hmmm...

There were a lot of people at the pond today, mostly moms and dad with kids. They had been feeding the turtles so there were a lot of turtles around the bridge when we showed up. We caught a few turtles and all the little kids ohhed and ahhed. It was fun!

Then I saw it… The giant snapper!! Most nobody took notice till I pointed it out. It was huge, bigger than I had remembered. I tried real hard but I couldn’t capture it. It dove down and swam out to the middle of the pond.



Then a few turtles later I saw another big snapper. Not as big as the granddaddy but still pretty impressive. I caught that one and took these photos. You can see my hand holding its tail. I guess this one was about 2 to 3 feet long.



Then some snotty lady ratted us out and the park ranger came down and told us we couldn’t steal the pic-a-nic baskets anymore. Party pooper, big stinky head!! All the other moms and dads were disappointed too cause their kids were getting such a kick out of seeing all the turtles.

I’m not sure what the big deal is. There is a catch and release program in place for the fish so why not the turtles?? And don’t they realize I’m a trained professional? Or at least I would be if sticky, snotty know-it-all ladies who can’t mind their own beeswax wouldn’t go around tattle tailing!!

Have you checked out Pony Wombat and the Second Ark yet??
You can preview the book for free! (aren't I nice!) or you could buy a copy (aren't you nice!)