This is my fourth and last post about King John and the Magna Carta – a short one this time, following another trip to Lincoln this afternoon. We went specifically to take a few photos of the newly created sand sculpture in the grounds of Lincoln Castle:
This impressive, 3D sculpture is 13ft. (4m) tall and 30ft. (9m.) wide. Work started on August 17th and continued for two weeks. It was created as part of the celebrations marking the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta (Festival800) and depicts King John meeting with the barons at Runnymede in 1215:
Its creators were the world renowned Dutch artist, Remy Hoggard and her husband, Paul, originally from Beverley in East Yorkshire. Between them, the couple have more than 30 years experience of sand sculpting. Of their sculpture at Lincoln, Paul Hoggard said, ‘This is probably one of our most adventurous projects in terms of size and scale…after fourteen days of shovelling, pounding, shaping and sculpting we were physically aching and are ready for a few days’ rest.’
The end product is quite awesome and well worth seeing.
The couple now live on a farm in Bulgaria, but spend most of their time travelling around the world, creating amazing sand sculptures. Remy said about their work: ‘With sand and water we make very detailed two or three-dimensional works, as well as large sculptures, in a relatively short amount of time.’
The brief video I found to finish with shows the delivery of the sand and the artists discussing the work about to be undertaken:
Millie Thom 
Wow this is amazing! Thanks Millie!
Wow, what a sculpture! Thank you for sharing – I would never know anything of this without your blog! Yay for the blogging! 🙂
Wonderful work! I love how rounded and smooth the figures look. I wonder how on earth they get it to stick together and stay firm. Thanks for the interesting post!
The mind boggles! But, from what I gather, it’s something to do with fine, irregularly shaped sand grains interlocking well. Sand with a high clay content is apparently good for sculpting, as clay has very fine grains. Any more than that, I’d have to look up! I did wonder what happens to the structure when the water used starts to dry out. It’s certainly impressive work though. Thanks, Beth.
Beautiful. What talented people.
That’s what I thought. The detail on the sculpture is wonderful. I imagine they must cover it when it rains. Not long after we got home yesterday it came down in bucketfuls! How the sand all stays together, so compacted, is anyone’s guess.
I love sand sculptures!
I can’t say I’ve thought about sand sculpures until this this one. It was really impressive! Unfortunately, we didn’t photogragh the back of it, but there were scenes of other, more recent, civil rights issues on the back of it. Those two sculptors were so talented. 🙂
Amazing sculptors! But are their sand sculptures permanent?
I wondered that myself. Somehow I doubt it, but I’ll let you know what happens to these in Lincoln. I imagine they must cover them over when it rains, too. I’ll have to go back to the castle and ask one of the officials there.
Thanks, Millie.