Sand Dollar Mixed Media

I was sorry to see our sand dollar artist leave Sunrose Gallery, in Seaside, Oregon but I have been wanting to make sand dollar art for a long time and the artist is leaving for bigger and better things.  Goody, now I can have fun cutting sand dollars into fun shapes and making abstracts!

For me abstracts are about as fun as art can be.  It isn’t work, it’s play. LOL.

I love the monochromatic colors of the sand dollar, it is so soothing to the eye and the color actually comes from the shadows.

I used my wire cutters to chop off little pieces of each sand dollar edge, I had the aim of .25″ although lots of the pieces ended up being larger.  To get my straight lines, I used skinny lengths of cardstock where I hot glued pieces of sand dollar in a row.  Then I could use hot glue to adhere the cardstock section to the canvas.  It is a lot less time consuming than to glue each piece individually.

It was nerve wracking to separate the sand dollar bottoms with my wire cutters so they came out in one gorgeous piece.  After they were attached with hot glue I made hot glue “squiggles” (to fill in the empty negative space) that were quickly covered with white sand and decorated with a pretty pearl .  I loved the look of a pearl in the center of each sand dollar bottom too.

Last, the broken sand dollar residue was used to fill in the spaces between the “moon beams” and the sand dollar bottoms that the tide left behind.

I have to get down on the beach and gather some sand dollars, I am almost out of them!  This abstract was truly a joy to make, partly because it seems like play and partly because I have wanted to make sand dollar art for a long time…and I can definitely say  it was worth the wait!