Nha Trang's Sand Art

She was sitting under a shade at a corner at the Po Nagar Tower site. My curiousity dragged me to see what she was doing closer. She had glass tumblers filled with different colored sands, arranged on a tray. One colored sand in one glass tumbler. A small box made of glass was put on a rotatable round platform. But she let the top of the box open.

a sketch on each of vertical surface

one colored sand  in one tumbler

Soon, I realized that she was about to make a sand art. I heard about this on TV before, but it was for the very first time I saw somebody was actually making it right before my eyes.

filling in the glass box with colored sands

a rotatable platform was very helpful

She made a sketch on the vertical surface of the glass box by a pen. One sketch on one vertical side. On the glass box, I saw two different sketches on it's 2 vertical sides. Next step was filling in the glass box by colored sands by a tool, similar to very small spoons. She managed to fill different colored sands by using the sketch as a guide. Occasionally, she used a tiny stick to ensure that the surface of the sands follows the sketch lines.

ensuring the sand surface follow the sketch lines

She kept doing that until the box was fully filled by the colored sands. She carefull checked the content of the box to ensure that she didn't leave some empty space in the glass box. Then she covered the top of the box by a small plan glass glued by silicone glue.

voila!

This kind of art started in Petra of Jordan in 1920's or earlier. They packed multi-colored sands in bottles and sold it to tourists as souvenirs. No one recalls precisely who started it or when (if you're interested in more details, click here).