There might not be a beach festival in Parksville this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that didn’t stop David Kaube from creating an elaborate sand sculpture in Qualicum Beach.
The sculptor, who has been involved in Beach Fest since the 1980s, said he started using sand as a child. He’s done art throughout his life, using everything from graphic design to oil paint. Currently, Kaube is a finishing carpenter.
“As a kid, I was just always interested in sand and I’ve always been artistic about it, I’ve ended up in many different mediums actually,” he said. “I actually don’t know if there’s a medium I didn’t try.”
Kaube said he’s sculpted eagles before, but wanted a chance to do one with more detail.
“I was going to do a bigger eagle with wings, but it’s a lot of work. I’ve done a couple of eagles in the past and I wasn’t quite satisfied with the way it turned out,” he said. “One in competition, the wing fell off, so I wanted a redo.”
READ MORE: Beach Fest features sand sculpting
It was a lot different to sculpt away from the beach for Kaube, but he said it offered a unique experience. For Kaube, it offered the opportunity to keep the spirit of the festival going.
“The site is really interesting, I discovered it last year because my son plays soccer, and it’s a natural sandbank, so it’s a natural sedimentary sand,” he said. “The sand itself has layers, like lines almost, like marble. It has different colours of lines from over, who knows how many thousands of years of sediment of layering of it. So I really liked it.”
The sculpture is behind the Civic Centre in Qualicum Beach behind the baseball diamond.