Animal Snow Sculptures: The Bartz Brothers' Shark, Walrus and More

Snow is a surprisingly good sculpting material. Packed, softened and left to refreeze, it can be carved into a 16-foot shark, a walrus taller than a house door or a pack of elephants in a back yard. This gallery gathers animal snow sculptures, led by the front-yard giants of the Bartz brothers of Minnesota.

The Bartz brothers' front-yard snow sculptures

Austin, Trevor and Connor Bartz started in 2012. Coming home to New Brighton, a suburb of the Twin Cities, from a Florida holiday into a snowstorm, they spent about eight hours building Puffy the Puffer Fish, six feet tall, in their parents' front yard. Every winter after that the animals grew:

• 2013, Wally the Walrus: more than 12 feet tall.
• 2014, Sharky the Shark: 16 feet tall, 25 feet long and 9 feet wide, about 95 hours of work.
• 2015, Snappy the Turtle: 37 feet long, with snow hauled from 11 neighbours' yards and a tennis court.
• 2016, Octavius the Octopus: 18 feet tall and 500 hours of work, raising $17,267 for clean-water projects in Haiti.

Later sculptures, from a 22-foot fish in 2017 to a snail more than 23 feet tall in 2019, raised tens of thousands of dollars for clean water around the world.

How giant snow sculptures are built

The Bartz method shows how much engineering goes into a snow animal. Their parents' lawn never holds enough snow, so most of it comes from church car parks, neighbours' yards and, in later years, dump-truck loads from the city. The snow is stirred in a garage kept at around 90°F so it softens slightly and packs better.

The rough shape is dug out with shovels, with scaffolding holding the snow in place while it refreezes. Ladders and climbing gear get the brothers to the top, and helpers on the ground throw up more snow when it is needed. Faces, mouths and eyes come last. Weather sets the schedule: they need steady cold for the snow to freeze, and rain means covering the work fast.

More animal snow sculptures

The best snow animals are recognisable from one strong feature: the shark's jaws, the walrus's tusks, the elephants' trunks and ears. Sculptors block those in first, then add posture, like the dog sitting up with its toy, and finally surface texture.

Texture works through shadow. Snow has no colour to work with, so carved recesses and raised edges catch low winter light differently, which is how the leopard's spots appear on a pure white surface.

Dinosaurs, myths and temple roosters

Big public displays push snow further. The dinosaur scene uses its visitors as a scale bar, and the human–hawk figure turns animals into myth, its curved beaks and faces carved in deep relief. The Chinese rooster looks as if it could have come off the corner of a temple roof, its tail swept up like decorative architecture.

Work on this scale is the speciality of winter festivals such as Harbin in China, where teams carve monumental snow sculptures and whole buildings of ice. To try a smaller version at home, pick a low, solid animal like a turtle or a sitting dog: the shape stays stable and the features read clearly.

Follow the brothers' later work in the Bartz brothers’ 2016 snow octopus, and for small projects browse the creative snowman collection. For a different technique, see the Marilyn Monroe snow portrait, made by clearing parts of a white surface.

Related reading

• Every Year, These 3 Brothers Make A Giant Snow Sculpture In Their Front Yard
• The Bartz Brothers’ 2014 Snow Shark and Earlier Sea Creatures
• Harbin’s 2015 Winter Festival: Illuminated Ice and Monumental Snow Sculpture
• Harbin’s Ice and Snow Festival: A Gallery of Winter Architecture
• Fifteen Ice Sculptures: Form, Transparency and Light
• 10 Ice and Snow Art Projects: Sculptures, Snow Drawings and a Playable Record
• An Ontario Ice Fort Built One Batch at a Time

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