Sculpture by the sea

With his bulbous seashell nose and a few spiky tufts of seaweed hair, Bill the octopus seemed to want to crawl back into the ocean as soon as two Newport Elementary School students and their art teacher finished etching his tentacles out of sand Friday afternoon.

“I think the tide is working against us,” said art instructor Jeni Erickson, who teaches sculpture with the Newport Elementary School’s After Class Enrichment program, as one wave after another washed over Bill.

“He’s going back into the ocean now,” she said.

Newport Elementary students Ryan Myers, 9, and Jordyn Myers, 7, had the privilege of making a giant sand sculpture on the beach behind their school Friday after their parents won an auction to benefit the Newport Elementary School Foundation earlier this year.

The foundation helps fund enrichment and art programs at the school, among other projects.

Erickson began taking some of her students out to the beach at the end of the school year to make sculptures in the sand as a special treat.

“He needs hair,” Ryan said, sticking some pieces of kelp on the top of Bill’s head.

“Making his eyes was the most fun part,” he said. “I made two big balls of sand and stuck them on his face.”

Jordyn, Ryan’s little sister, was busy digging a large trench in front of Bill to protect him from the encroaching tide.

“I found a big shell in the sand on the way here for his nose,” she said, proud of the work she did shaping Bill’s tentacles and face.

Jordyn later found two small sea shells to stick into Bill’s bulging eye sockets.

The two children were headed off to Ruby’s Diner with Erickson after finishing work on Bill, leaving the sea creature to slowly dissolve in the surf.

“I couldn’t imagine two better kids to do this with,” Erickson said. “These are great kids.”