Beer and a weekend at the beach were the reasons that Craig Mutch entered his first sand sculpture competition back in the 1980s.Today, he has a worldwide reputation for his sand sculpting abilities, and corporate clients who will pay thousands for one of his gritty masterpieces to liven up an event.Mr Mutch of Vancouver, Canada and wife Marji will be teaching sand sculpture workshops in Bermuda this month in preparation for the 18th Annual Sand Sculpture Competition planned for Horseshoe Bay in Southampton.“I fell into sand sculpture accidentally,” Mr Mutch told The Royal Gazette.When he was growing up in land locked Edmonton, Alberta there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to build sand castles so it wasn’t until he moved to Vancouver, as an adult, that he had a chance to build one for the first time.“Some friends invited me to come to the beach and build sand sculptures,” said Mr Mutch. “It was more of a social thing than anything else. I think the first one I did was a Ferrari car.”As his interest increased he began to enter various sand sculpture competitions. One year he won the architectural category of the prestigious World Sand Sculpture Championships in Harrison Hotsprings, British Columbia. At the time, it was the largest sand sculpture competition in western competition and amateurs were advised against taking part. It is defunct now. Winning these competitions cemented his reputation and allowed him to turn this talent into a moneymaker.“I set up a website and I started getting invited to make sand sculptures around the world,” he said. “One year we went to Dubai, Saudi Arabia. We go to Belgium every four years.”Mr Mutch said the secret to great sand sculpture was having a good imagination and a lot of patience.“It also takes a bit of engineering,” he said. “I have been a jack of all trades all my life. When I was kid I did carpentry in the oilfields and a number of different things. My father was a science teacher and a shop teacher. I was used to working with tools as an artist.”To make his works of art, Mr Mutch uses everything from masonry tools to kitchen tools such as ice cream scoops and spatulas. He also has a couple of custom made tools to help him make grooves in the sand.He said the hardest part about sand sculpture was picking a concept.“It is also sometimes a challenge to follow the concept through to its final outcome,” he said. “Very rarely does it come out as you first thought of it. That is just part of the process. I like sand sculpture, because you are working with your hands whether you are at the beach or in a mall.”Mr Mutch doesn’t limit himself to sand sculptures. In the Fall he carves decorative pumpkins and in the winter he does ice sculptures.“It is definitely different working with snow and ice,” he said. “It is the same concepts, but using a different kind of engineering. One is in plus 85F (30C) weather and the other is 14F (-10C) weather.”In Bermuda, his workshop will be geared to children, families and anyone who had a few minutes to learn and have some fun.This will not be his first time in Bermuda as he first visited the Island in the 1990s when he worked in the cruise industry.“We were just going to do two visits, but as we left Norfolk, Virginia the ship broke down we had to be towed into Bermuda,” he said. “We had a week in Bermuda. It was lucky and kind of unlucky at the same time.”Sand sculpture workshops will be held at Horseshoe Bay on August 29 and 30 at 6pm. The competition will be held on August 31 at Horseshoe Bay Beach.Building begins at 10am and ends with judging at 4pm. To enter e-mail bermudasandsculpture@bermudatourism.com. Also see Facebook under Bermuda Sand Sculpture Competition. Entry is free, but space is limited. There are categories for children, teenagers, companies, families and visitors.