Sand

Yep - sand is OK to use for sand, but try and find the finest sand you can. Coarse sand looks great for a UK beach, but needs much finer - almost dust-like - to best approximate sand. You may have to lightly airbrush it a bit when finished to get the best hue of "sand seen from a distance rather than actually sitting on it" - if you can see what I mean.

Steve Newcastle NSW Aust

Yes, the real thing should be fine - literally. Don't go for the coarser grades; sounds a bit absurd, but you don't want it looking too over-scale! I suppose you could always sieve coarse sand to separate out the smaller grains, though.

David E. Belcher

What colour would you use? "Desert Sand"? ;-)

You can use an ordinary household flour sieve.

Unless you're trying to represent, say, Brighton "beach".

May I suggest that you make the basic 'shape' you require with some other material and perhaps a courser sand, Building Sand. Fix this with PVA. When dry and hard give this a light/thin covering with the finish sand of your choice by brushing another layer of PVA onto the base and sprikling on the top coat.

It will need to be very fine and very dry, and I suggest 'play sand' from a toy store such as Toys-R-Us or Mothercare or 'Kiln dried sand' meant for block patio paving from a builders merchant such as Builder Center or Jewsons.

Get this down below the waterline, add stones and seaweed and then add the 'water'.

Best of luck

add stones and seaweed and then

What weed?

Ken.

Good one. :-)

Actually I haven't the foggiest. Would have to go to a headland over-looking one of our beaches and see what "colour" it is from a distance. Safe to say, not Chevrolet Rocket Red.

Steve