delicious New Orleans blue crab ice art! (coming soon)

not much to show you yet

First off, I have to confess, my blue crab ice art so far exists only in my head. But it looks so good in there, and yummy too! In my mind, the colors of the crab are mainly a beautiful mixing blue and green. And then it has a bit of orange, especially in the claws.

I am really looking forward to working on this piece, and I’ve almost legitimately started it several times already! When I finally get some actual artwork done, I will post it here and update the text. I’ve pretty much finished all the research that I need to do, so I should be able to update things fairly soon.my

“Callinectes sapidus (blue crab) (Cayo Costa Island, Florida, USA) 4” by James St. John is licensed under CC BY 2.0

the legs and claws will make it a challenge

Crabs have 10 legs. That’s a LOT. I have sculpted a few crawfish and they also have ten legs. Aside from some lobsters, those are the only crustaceans I’ve tried before. In some ways, however, the blue crab will be easier. And I think it will make a better ice art piece as well.

This is the closest I’ve come to sculpting a crab. At least a crawfish has the same number of legs and is also a crustacean 🙂

can't wait to see the colors!

The way colors can be mixed in ice should make the blue, green, and orange crab look fantastic!

some background on real blue crabs

Now, normally I don’t advocate that people aggressively eat one kind of animal or another. That’s often how species become threatened, and blue crab populations have been suffering along our Atlantic coast. However, blue crabs are considered an invasive species in Spain. Invasive species can do a lot of damage, often because they aren’t threatened by natural predators. With the explosive population growth that can result, they can crowd out or eat natural residents. Along our Atlantic coast, lionfish, for example, are considered an invasive species and becoming very problematic.

Although blue crabs seem to be having a rough time in the Chesapeake Bay area, they are apparently doing well elsewhere. And with climate change, they may create a threat to oysters in the Gulf, which are definitely a favorite of mine. So, just as we are being encouraged to add lionfish to our diets, how about we eat some Gulf and Spanish blue crab too!

This is from the Blue Crab Restaurant on Lakeshore Dr. in Nola, where you can definitely eat some blue crab 😋

random musings or in progress info

Btw, please ignore the random blurbs and duplicate photos. They’re just placeholders for now, until I can fill this out a bit.

last blurb on the crab

and here is where I will tie everything up and ask you to buy a print of my blue crab ice art, once I have it available 😉

Dawson List

I think I remember when I started sculpting ice...it's been so long! ;) Since then, I've done some sort of ice sculpting activity or another in half the states in the U.S. and 10 foreign countries. I used to have a Guinness World Record in ice sculpting and I once very nearly won a world championship. I have hundreds of ice sculpting friends and acquaintances at this point, which makes for an interesting view of our little blue planet.