Texas has some of the best beaches in the USA for building sandcastles. Its unique fine sand, silt, and clay content make it ideal for learning to build successful sandcastles. Welcome to the sandcastle capital of the world!

The amount of water is crucial when learning to build strong sandcastles. Using buckets or forms means there is no such thing as too much water.  Mixing the sand and water in a container as a slurry works best as the excess water drains straight into the beach!

Basic tools include a shovel for digging and gathering sand, a forming bucket - with the base cut out correctly, a water carrying bucket, and a basic toolkit which includes a carving spatula, mechanical pencil, simple soft brush, and a Good Straw that has a Lanyard so it can be worn around your neck. You can use kitchen utensils or whatever you can find but why would you start with the wrong tools? Remember what grandaddy says, "Always use the right tools for the right Job".

Here are 4 Golden Rules:

1. Always use wet sloppy sand!

2. Build your wet block in a pyramid shape that is always wider at the bottom.

3. When the block is built work on carving and details from top to bottom.

4. Use your tools, not your fingers! Good Habits will help you get better and faster.

There are 5 Different techniques

1. Soft Packing is bashing damp sand into shape to make it stick together this is used by babies and professionals! This can be used anywhere.

2. Hand-Stacking: Use wet sloppy sand pancakes stacked by hand to make towers and walls. This can be used anywhere with varying levels of success.

3. Drip Castling: Use wet sloppy sand dribbled through your fingers to form organic tree-like stacks of sand. This can be used anywhere.

4. Wet Packing: Use a soft sand wall of any shape, filled with water, then sand is added to mold any shape wanted. This is good for making foundations for your castle to stand on and joining irregular shapes.

5. Forming: The method we teach and professionals use. We use a form or bucket to hold a sloppy wet sand mixture which means the air is expelled and the draining wet sand forms a stable, very strong block. We regularly make sandcastles 6ft high that weigh over 1000 lbs using this method.

Most formed castles will last the entire day. If you need to extend the durability of your sandcastle, keep it moist by lightly spraying it with water from a fine misting spray bottle throughout the build and shading it from direct sunlight if possible. Building during the early morning or late afternoon can also help avoid the peak sun that might dry out your sand too quickly. Professionals spray the outside of completed parts of the sculpture with environmentally friendly "glue" during competitions so you can enjoy the results!

Using forms is the way to progress to building larger sculptures and do commercial and competition work. Practice and watching professionals work will help you a lot but that is why we are running "The Science of Sandcastles" to help people progress and dispel some of the "myths" attached to the world of sandcastle building and sand sculpture. Techniques like arch building, intricate carving, and mixing some or all of the 5 techniques can add sophistication to your designs

Yes! Start with the larger shapes, this is called roughing out. This defines the basic design. Details are added after the base shape is finalized.  Work from the top down using tools that suit your style of work. This can vary from say, castle and architectural designs through to figurative work, faces, etc. Use fine tools like paintbrushes for delicate features and keep your sand moist using a fine mist 1-gallon sprayer. Your tool selection will start with our full toolkit which will enable you to do just about anything you can dream of!

You can practice sand sculpting at home using a sandbox or a large container filled with Fine sharp sand with no grit. Do not use play sand, it has been designed to be rounded and is useless for building anything. You can test sand with the sand shaper tools in a few minutes so you don't waste time and money on sand that will not let you progress.

Don’t get discouraged! Collapses are a part of the learning process, and recovering from a collapse gets you more points in competitions. Analyze what might have caused the collapse. It could be too much water, an uneven foundation, or too much weight on an unstable part. Use what you learn to improve your next attempt. Learning to stack sand is vital to moving up to bigger builds, you can see this at "The Science of Sandcastles" exhibit for a whole week before Texas SandFest starts.

Many coastal communities offer sandcastle-building lessons during the Year. Online you can find tutorials, videos, and free advice from Professional Sculptor Andy Hancock (@sandcastleandy). He runs the largest collection of free online resources to help build Sandcastles on any beach in the world. The YouTube channel has over 300 videos on every technique https://www.youtube.com/@SandcastleAndy.

All of he above!