Tuesday

Outdoor inspiration: Artist Jim Denevan

Nature has inspired artists for centuries, from depicting it to interacting with it. Artist Jim Denevan is one of those who prefer the latter. Working completely by free-hand, Denevan constructs complex drawings on long stretches of beach. His canvas is organic, made of sea and sand. His drawings however look exactly the opposite; precise and meticulously calculated. The striking thing about Denevan’s work is its natural precision; although his images look as if they have taken hours of planning and calculating, they are done completely freehand, drawn only with a beach stick. Denevan’s work is the kind of stuff that is immediately breathtaking, both for its scope and the organic labor involved.

Using wide beaches at low tide, works up to 7 hours, and covers sometimes up to 30 miles as he walks and creates. The end product is a huge sand drawing, completed with no measuring tools whatsoever.

Aerial pictures of Denevan’s work are striking, but his drawings are also meant to be physically experienced on the ground. Until the tide comes in and washes away Denevan’s creation, the drawings are places that can be touched, felt and seen from a different perspective, pulling the viewer into not only the art but also the natural landscape.

With nature as his canvas, Denevan’s work has been featured in outdoor focused publications like National Geographic, Outdoor and The Surfers Journal. His drawings become a natural part of the environment, created and later erased by the natural cycles of the ocean. An artist for anyone with a love of the environment and the outdoors to get excited about.