Land artist Jim Denevan’s medium is sand.

From a single piece of driftwood, a low tide, endless grains of sand, and inspiration, art is born. Then, just a handful of hours later, the tide rises and the work blurs, finally melting away. Artist Jim Denevan repeats this transient artistry on beaches around the world.

The ephemeral beauty of Denevan has graced frozen lakes, dry lakes, and desert sands in addition to the sand that parallels our oceans.

Denevan’s fleeting artistic endeavors are the largest pieces of artwork ever created (some are several miles in diameter). The wonder of his artwork falls into the category of land art.

The brilliance of Denevan was wound into eloquence by the Anthropologist:

“Artist Jim Denevan is in pursuit of the impermanent. From the vanishing curl of a wave to sand briefly stilled between tides, nature’s fleeting moments are his stock-in-trade.”

Denevan also creates art with earth and ice. Outside the realm of art, Denevan founded Outstanding in the Field – a mobile feast aimed to, “re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.”

For more inspiring land art, explore Andy Goldsworthy’s land art.

If you’re taking a stroll through the English landscape…Andy Goldsworthy wants to stop you in your tracks.

He’s a British sculptor, photographer and committed environmentalist, and he likes arranging things. He turns random piles of stones into gravity-defying structures and scattered leaves into dazzling gradiated rainbows. He tracks lines and curves upon the ground where none should exist, stacks ice in the unlikeliest of places, and puts patterns and colors into the landscape that would make any onlooker rub their eyes. And the true magic of his work is that for a second – just for a second – you believe it’s the work of Nature. What would your first thought be if you encountered these in the wild?

“Everything has the energy of its making inside it.”

- Interview, The Guardian, 2007.

Goldsworthy’s tools of choice? Anything to hand (including his hands). In recent years he’s used power-tools for his trickier creations – and employed the help of experts such as dry stone wallers. Primarily, though, his real tools are gravity, wind, rain and the beautiful detritus of the natural world. And patience – lots of it.

“I can’t edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole.”

- Interview, The Telegraph, 2007.

And if you’re wondering what Goldsworthy’s view of his natural medium is? In a word – ambivalent.

“The landscape is often perceived as pastoral, pretty, beautiful – something to be enjoyed as a backdrop to your weekend before going back to the nitty-gritty of urban life. But anybody who works the land knows it’s not like that. Nature can be harsh – difficult and brutal, as well as beautiful.”

- Interview, The Telegraph, 2007.

“A lot of my work is like picking potatoes…you have to get into the rhythm of it.”

- Interview, The Guardian, 2007.

Andy Goldsworthy‘s online catalogue preview , volume 1 (1976-1986).

See more natural and environmental art, fascinating earthworks, and additional Andy Goldsworthy art.

Images via: pixdaus; tintintin; nonpareil; barcar; dullhunk; Cass Sculpture Foundation; Chris Wright.