Giant Patek Philippe Nautilus By Artist Simon Beck In The Sand On British Beach

Artist Simon Beck has created an enormous 170 x 100-meter drawing of a Patek Philippe Nautilus in the sands of Britain’s seven-mile-long Brean beach. According to interviews the artist has given to local news outlets, he was commissioned by an unnamed German fashion magazine.

Previously, Beck has been commissioned to craft large drawings of current-model luxury watches in snow for the German Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin; you can peruse photos here. These included 2018 models by Rolex, Nomos Glashütte, IWC, Omega, and Hublot.

Giant Patek Philippe Nautilus by Simon Beck on Brean beach, Somerset, England

For that 2018 photo shoot, Beck told the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, which is the Süddeutsche Zeitung national newspaper’s weekend magazine, that to complete his drawings he needs only a compass, a sketch, and a lot of time. He creates the motifs at his home in the French Alps, then he calculates the size so that each millimeter of his drawing equals one step. Using a compass, he then walks through the shape, counts the steps, and puts down sticks as markings. He creates circles with a long rope to form a type of human drafting compass.

While the end product looks machine made in its precision, these drawings are entirely handmade (or perhaps “footmade”) by one man.

See any parallels here?

Though it took Beck more than eight hours to complete the design of the Patek Philippe Nautilus at the end of July 2020, by the time the evening’s high tide arrived all his work had washed away in “the sands of time.” It has been reported that this was his 124th artwork on Brean beach in Somerset, England.

An engineer by trade, Beck uses a specially adapted rake to create his masterpieces. He has previously said that the hard sand of Brean beach is perfect for his art.

You can see more of Simon Beck’s giant art on Instagram at @simonbeck_snowart.

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3 replies
  1. Thomas 37 Grad
    Thomas 37 Grad says:

    This is a nice article. Wow. Never seen such thing before. A sand-watch, in German language Sand-Uhr is hour-glas.Thank you for this report dear Elizabeth. This is really something very different. Greetings, Thomas.

    it is not waterproof, isn’t it?

    Reply

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