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June 4th, 2016:Big 'n' Little Chess
As winter yields to summer, snowmen yield to sand castles.
But some smart-alecky overachievers must go crazy with stuff to embarrass your skills in front of your kids.
There's even pro sand sculpturers traveling and doing paid performances at promotions to draw tourists to a resort area.
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An elephant playing chess with a mouse? Yup, you read that correctly! Just recently world renowned sculptor (mostly known for carving pumpkins), Ray Villafane, teamed up with artist Sue Beatrice to create an astonishing sand sculpture of a nine foot life-size elephant named Chessie Trunkston playing chess with a field mouse named Hershel Higginbottom. |
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......................................................... There was a young elephant named Chessie ......................................................... who ate peanuts but was very messy ......................................................... when a mouse had him beat ......................................................... and with no way to cheat ......................................................... he made one last move and compressed him |
How do dey do dat
Linklumberjim Saturday Jun 4 01:04 PM
that's really cool. the facial expressions... the elephant seems chagrined, having just lost his queen.... the mouse almost apologetic.
Gravdigr Saturday Jun 4 01:08 PM
How, out of sand, did they make the hair on the elephant's head?
How, out of sand, did they make the mouse's whiskers?
xoxoxoBruce Saturday Jun 4 01:21 PM
One grain at a time. 
I honestly don't know how they manage to shape and make it stick. At first I thought beach sand has salt on it so maybe shaped wet will dry solid-ly-er-ish. But no, these things last for awhile unless the ocean gets them. Looking at the bottom left picture, the sculpture and surrounding bricks/tiles have a whitish caste. Like there was a little Portland cement in the sand.
Gravdigr Sunday Jun 5 02:09 PM
There is a product made for training bricklayers, it's a temporary, reusable mortar mix. I think the name of it started with an R.
It works and mixes just like mortar, but, when your finished, and it's dry, you can just break the stuff apart, brush/bust it off the bricks/blocks, and start all over again with the same mortar.
I wonder if that has an application in sand sculpture?
xoxoxoBruce Sunday Jun 5 04:41 PM
I have a bag of powerhouse cement I mix with water, it makes a mortar looking and acting goop for cementing in a smoke pipe to the chimney, or other boiler spots that need sealing. Sets up like cement, but if I have to move something I just break it out, add water, and reuse it. I know I have some that's been reused a dozen times.
There's the white liquid stuff you add to cement for laying a thin coat, like filling a hole that tapers to nothing. Strengthens the thin parts so they don't snap when you walk on them. Maybe they could add a little to the sand to make it hold it's shape.
We had a 55 gallon drum of a liquid to mix into the casting mold sand for better detail when the pattern was pulled. No label, no cautions, no name, but it didn't seem to bother any of my 16 fingers. 
Diaphone Jim Sunday Jun 5 09:47 PM
Fun post. Love looking at the details.
I imagine broom straw and such are fair to use.
But 16 fingers?
Think of the possibilities: Piano with huge complexity.
Banjo picking!
Nose picking!
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