There was the national stone stacking competition,
and several of the artists in residence hadn't got the Sand day out of their system yet, so they were still building sand creations.
We spoke to an artist family who had come up from East Sussex to make willow structures for the weekend, but had had so much fun that they were spending their day off making sand art. This was what they ended up with having started with no plan!
(Clearly these are not my photos - there was someone with a kite-mounted camera!)
The stone creations were beautiful, helped by the wonderfully uniform sea-tumbled white stones.
Having chatted to some people and decided that we wanted to get in on the action, we decided to enter the family creative challenge as a rather extended families (3 of us!).
Our plan was to make a lighthouse, but as time went on, we diversified and ended up with a temple complex with a mosaic entrance way, a stunning gatehouse and a rather fine road. I think everyone managed to have some meaningful creative input!
In some ways, the amazing selection of stones available was a handicap - there was always something beautiful that needed to be incorporated.
We hung around for the judging (having done our best to impress the judges with our commentary on how our work represented the instability of power and the rocky road ahead) and were astonished to discover we had won!!!!!
We were presented with money off vouchers to the local swimming pool and splash centre, Sewerby Hall, and a mounted print of one of the artist's work. It is going to be transferred between houses - the start of a joint touring art collection!
We think that we owe our success to our stone stacking prowess (some families just made pretty pictures in 2D), and the fact that our creation was clearly a joint effort. It did kinda scream something you might find when a two 7 year olds, two 8 years olds, two 10 year olds and a 12 year olds allow 7 adults to play too! Although some of the other family things were amazing, they were a bit more carefully choreographed.
