Quiksilver Pro Long Beach, NY

Residents of Long Beach NY have been watching the preparations taking place for the Quiksilver Pro New York - Long Beach - Sept 1-15 Surfing Tournament for well over a month.These giant wrap around decals advertising the event now cover all the towns ticket booths at the beach entrances.

The town is still showing the effects of Hurricane Irene's recent visit.

This decking at one of the beach ramps was torn up by the storm.

All the sand washed into the streets from the storm surge has to be cleaned up.

Chris Morrissey of the Beach Maintenance Department helping in the clean up effort.

The foundation of the Lifeguard station on National Blvd. prepared to reseat the structure. The station was washed off the foundation and came to rest against the boardwalk.

This is the crane which was going to be used to hoist the station back onto its foundation.

I think this is the newscasters booth.

One of the structures erected for the event on National Blvd. beach. The Allegria Hotel is in the background.

The structure for the contest to pick the next Roxy Girl.

Cleanup underway on National Blvd. and Broadway.The Allegria Hotel ( on right ) where many of the surfing community are staying during the event.

A beach mummy buried in the sand amusing himself with building sand pyramids till the surfing conditions pick up.

Hurricane Irene Long Beach,NY

I thought I'd share a few pictures of how Hurricane Irene affected us here at Long Beach, NY. Some people are annoyed that Irene didn't live up to the weather report hype.

Well, it was more than enough storm for me!I'm glad we didn't get a full category 1 Hurricane come through our area.

This is the ramp leading to the beach on our block at the height of the storm during high tide.

This is the same ramp as the storm surge washes in.

This is my wife going down the ramp. She wanted her picture with the water in the background.

She didn't realize the depth of the water because of the foam covering it. It had filled her boots.

I hollered to her to get out of there but she said take the picture first. A second later she got walloped with a surge of water that was almost up to her waist!

This photo is a split second before she got knocked off her feet. She managed to hang onto the railing and I ran down and dragged her back up the ramp.

This is the boardwalk on our corner showing the flooding caused by the storm. We were lucky that the dune sand and wooden planking held!

The surf broke through the boardwalk planking on this street.

You can see where the water washed over the dune under this section of the boardwalk and then smashed through the wood planking.

This couple were on the Lindell Blvd. beach checking out the water. Even though the storm had passed and the tide had receded the surf was still kicking up.

The decking around the concession stand on Grand Blvd. was broken apart by the storm.

One of the metal lifeguard chairs which are set out just beyond the high tide mark washed up the beach by the force of the surf.

The playground at Magnolia Blvd. showing where the storm surge punched through the cinder block wall.

My Mom standing on the boardwalk at National Blvd.

National Blvd. and the Allegria Hotel completely flooded!

A tree on our corner felled by the storm. Our area of town was without power for a day and a half. We were very fortunate. We got no flooding or damage to our home.

Thinking about Shark Week

I've been enjoying Shark Week on the Discovery channel this week. It got me thinking to how I first became interested in sharks.

In the mid 1960's my Mother and I had gone for a walk and stopped to rummage through a bookstore. There was an enormous selection of old National Geographic magazines on sale for 3 for a quarter. I begged a quarter from my Mom and shot off to pick out my three issues!

Delving through the stacks of magazines I came across the very one Chief Brody is leafing through in the film Jaws. When I saw the painting of the white shark attacking the lobster fisherman's dory that appears in the film I was hooked!

Then in 1971 Peter Gimbel released the documentary Blue Water White Death which chronicled his search for the Great White shark. Amazon.com: Blue Water, White Death: Peter Gimbel, Ron Taylor, Valerie Taylor, Stan Waterman: Movies & TV

I pestered my Dad to take me to see it. I remember he was none to pleased when he found the theater had hiked up the usual ticket prices for this movie!

Watching that film I thought I had died and gone to heaven! No one had ever filmed White sharks underwater before. That film blew me away.

Around that same time my Dad bought me a copy of "Sportfishing for Sharks" which was written by Capt. Frank Mundus. Mundus coined the phrase " Monster Fishing " to describe this new sport.

Then in 1974 I coerced my Dad to take me to see the self proclaimed " Monster Man " Frank Mundus give a lecture on shark fishing.

After his talk I got Mundus to autograph my copy of his book!

That same year my Mom mentioned my love of sharks to a co worker who owned his own boat and often did offshore fishing. He agreed to take my Dad and I out for the day.

I remember first laying eyes on his 23 foot boat and wishing it were bigger! It was a windy day and the choppy water inshore grew to fairly large swells as we headed 40 miles offshore.

No sooner did we start drifting and chumming then my Dad who was prone to getting seasick turned green as a gill and laid down in the cabin.

When the drag of the reel screamed to announce the strike of the first shark my Dad dragged himself back on deck to watch me land a 5 ft Brown shark.

Sick as he was he watched us measure, then tag and release the shark. At which point he promptly added his breakfast to the chum slick and then crashed back onto the bunk in the cabin.

I caught a second Brown shark soon after but nothing will ever replace landing that first shark and seeing it close up!

Getting back to Mundus if you notice he autographed my book twice! I finally got to fish with him out of Montauk aboard his boat the Cricket II in 2005. Fishing with him was a treat! To say he was a character would be putting it mildly! He regaled us with his great stories and shared his scrap book of photos with us.

To celebrate Shark week I'm having a sale on my Shark and Nautical sculptures at my Etsy shop. Use the coupon code SHARKWEEK201 at checkout to get 30% off the purchase price! : Mako Shark OOAK Sculpture by BlacknickSculpture on Etsy

Making Tentacles for a Stop Motion Puppet

The stop motion puppet I'm designing will have six tentacles. I sculpted one tentacle and made a two piece mold of it.

From the two molds I made six sets of latex skins. Six top sides and six bottom sections to cover the finished tentacles.

The tentacles were made by taking a section of aluminum wire and wrapping it in cotton string. I tacked the string in place with a bit of liquid latex rubber.

The thicker portion of tentacle that attaches to the body of the creature was built up with sections of foam rubber.

Then after dabbing on a bit of liquid latex I began wrapping the entire tentacle with athletic foam wrap.

Here is a top section of the latex skin for the tentacle fresh from the mold.

Here I'm test fitting the skin to one of the foam wrapped wire tentacles.

Next post I'll begin assembling the tentacles.

Christmas In July Sale

I'll be taking part in Etsy's Christmas in July sale between the dates of 7/14/2011 through 7/24/2011. Use the coupon code at checkout to take 30% off your purchase price. I also liked to mention that a couple pieces of my sea themed artwork are in these two fishing inspired treasuries: Musings of a Fisherman's Wife by fiiimac on Etsy Gone Fishing! by WhisperingOak on Etsy

Cthulhu Sculpture

I took a break from working on my spider pit recreation to sculpt Cthulhu. I thought I'd share some work in progress photos with you.

Here is the aluminum wire/foil armature.

Here I've started adding clay. The bolts in the feet will secure the sculpt to the base.

The sculpt mounted to the wooden base. I'm adding Apoxie clay around the bolts to secure it in place.

Cutting the armature for the wings out of wire screening.

The two completed wings with metal rods added for mounting to the sculpture.

Smoothing the area the wings will attach to.

Blending the area around the wings with the rest of the body.

Adding the tentacles to Cthulhu.

Here is the finished Cthulhu.

Whale Washes Up Off Atlantic Beach NY

I was working on this fellow this morning.

It is one of the creatures that inhabits the spider pit diorama I'm creating.

I had just got the eyes installed when a friend called to tell me a whale had washed ashore in the next town.

I grabbed my camera and decided to take a walk along the shoreline. Atlantic Beach is a private beach but I figured they wouldn't mind.

When I got about a 1/4 block away I could smell the carcass.

The biologist at the scene said it is a Finback whale. It is estimated it is between 35 - 40 feet long. I guess they have to haul it out to sea and let nature take its course.