Seaside Art

Plaster-of-Paris - Seaside Style

Thanks to the lovely Susie we went to Eastney beach on Tuesday and had a fabulous craft session with the Portsmouth home ed group.  It was so much fun!

Once we settled on the beach we set straight to work.  First of all I sent the boys off to find some pretty stones and shells to put in the bottom of their moulds.  Next we set off to find a perfect patch of sand for the project.  The sand we found was on a bit of a slope and was quite compacted so we dug some up and then made a flat mound ready for making our shapes to pour the plaster-of-paris into. Quinn was the first to go - he decided to do his foot. Caden went next with his hand and finally Charlie, who also wanted to do his hand.  It took a couple of attempts to get it right and not have the sand collapse between the fingers/toes etc. We had to push down quite hard.  We were trying to make a depth of about 1 inch.  If you are trying this with your child - when they remove their foot or hand if it is not deep enough, just dig it out very carefully with your finger.  I had to do this with each of them.  Next we grabbed our bag of plaster-of-paris, mixed in the water and poured away.  Be careful when you do this as the sand is a very fragile medium to work with.

It took quite a long time for the plaster to set, this was probably due to a combination of the sun not shining that much (although it was nice and warm (well for the UK)) and the wet sand.  I think it took about an hour in the end, maybe a bit more.  Here's a video of us digging them out - it was quite exciting! :O)

I can tell you that they were very proud with how it turned out!  :O)

If you get the chance I thoroughly recommend this craft!

Caden very proudly shows off our work to Auntie D