We are loving the geometric snow illustrations created by Simon Beck's larger than life process of walking across the snow in raquettes (snowshoes) for up to 10 hours at a time! Talking about his process, he says, 'Most of this activity takes place in the ski resort of Les Arcs, where I own an apartment and spend most of the winter. On average they take about 10 hours to really do it properly, some are a little unfinished, if my feet get cold or hurt too much. The setting out is done using handheld orienteering compass and distance determination using pace counting or measuring tape. Curves are either judged or arcs of circle using a clothes line attached to an anchor at the centre.
Designs are chosen from the world of geometry or "crop circles". Some are named eg Mandelbrot set, Koch curve, Sierpinski triangle are 3 of my favorites. I have never damaged the ice on the lakes I use AFAIK, when the ice starts melting you seem to get a layer of snow on top of a layer of watery mush on top of the main layer of ice. I often test the ice by jumping on it wearing ski boots and trying to break it (in known shallow areas!) but have not yet succeeded in damaging it other than by dropping a heavy pointed rock. Inevitably there is a lot of comparison with crop circles. I have never been involved in the creation of crop circles, nor do I condone this sort of activity without permission of the owner. I would like to do some farm art WITH permission.'