Think this weekend will be snow much fun? This Waterloo snow sculptor agrees
Matthew Morris is known for his elaborate sculptures and he offers some tips on how to do it
Matthew Morris is well known for making elaborate snow sculptures on the front lawn of his Waterloo, Ont., home.
From tributes to Easter Island, gnomes with tall hats, walls with eyes lit up and even this week a modern art tower of snow blocks, Morris says he finds snow sculpting to be a fun way to get outside, get some physical exercise and meet some neighbours all while using snow as a creative outlet.
"We have a big snowfall landing on a Saturday so kids — and hey kids of all ages — can ... get out there and have some real fun," he said.
Morris says the tools are simple: start with a pail and a shovel.
Shovel the snow into the pail and leave about five centimetres of space at the top, then flip it.
"With a quick twist, the pail will come off and you can go ahead and make five or 10 or 20 more piles. You'll be surprised how quickly you can make a big stock of piles of snow that can then be used for building."
The snow this weekend may be wetter than Morris would usually like, but he says the "packing snow" is still a good medium for sculptures.
LISTEN | Waterloo's Matthew Morris offers tips for creating snow sculptures:
"My favourite snow is non-packing fluffy snow that's packed into a form and then the magical word is sintering where the snow bonds together over a couple of hours and it's a beautiful carving medium," he said.
'The idea is to get kids outside'
He said last winter, he went to his grandson's school to teach them to make snow sculptures and once they were done, they realized they still had about 30 extra buckets of snow.
"So together as a team we just started building organically and we ended up having a blast making this fort that was then used at the school," he said.
"For the next week I'd walk by and see all these kids just still playing with that fort. The idea is to get kids outside, get them active, and once you start building a few towers, everything happens just naturally and organically and the fun begins."
Morris will be taking part in Winterloo on Jan. 27, an uptown Waterloo festival to celebrate the snow, and says he's willing to give advice at that event if anyone needs help.