Jamie Harkins can spend hours on a masterpiece and in seconds it can be gone. While paintings can last a lifetime, Jamie's last until the next tide comes in.

The 42-year-old 3D sand sculpture artist creates optical illusions on Mount Maunganui beaches at low tide before they disappear with the waves – a concept Jamie says many can't quite grasp.

Optical illusions are everything when it comes to Jamie's art.

'I get that a lot with people. I tell them what I'm doing and they still don't understand why I do it for nothing.”

But to Jamie, it's not for nothing. His sand creations are recorded in photographs and published on his Facebook page.

'For me it adds to people's lives, especially to mine. I just feel really good at the end of it, like I've accomplished something and it's something that hasn't been done before.

'It's a clean canvas again you know. I'm always amazed as to how it leads to another idea. It's quite infinite.”

Jamie's a self-confessed perfectionist. 'I'm never really happy,” he says. But onlookers are, with many beach-goers praising his work – and the artist gets a little embarrassed about it all.

'I sort of say ‘thank you' and run off,” confesses Jamie, who wants to make an apology.

'When I'm working, people always want to come up and talk but because I'm racing the tide and usually the sun and the wind – and the rain sometimes – I don't really have time to talk to people, so I come off quite rude in a way and I feel quite stink about that.

'I come off really antisocial when I'm working but I'm super focused.”

In a photoshoot with The Weekend Sun photographer Tracy Hardy, Jamie was rushing to get to band practice.

'The thing I hate the most is being beaten by the tide or not finishing,” says Jamie.

From as many as 70 sand art creations, about 40 are what Jamie calls failures. What is a failure?

'It's either washed away before I've finished, or most of the time the sun will be too hot so the top will dry out and it will fade away. Or the sun will be on the wrong angle and it will reflect light back at the camera and you won't be able to see anything – or it will rain and it will disperse and just wash away.

'Or it will be too windy and the white sand that I put on top fills into the dark places and you've got nothing again.”

There's plenty on Jamie's mind when he's creating, so we will forgive him for not wanting to stop and chat.

It can sometimes take hours for Jamie to finish his sand art, but he's very patient. 'I'm very determined too. When I see something in my head and I want to see it on the beach, I'll keep going back.”

His favourite places to draw are Mussel Rock and the Matakana side of Mauao. 'I don't know what the bay is called but I've called it Canvas Bay.”

Using one bamboo stick, a bucket, a fishing line and a beach – Jamie has created a three-dimensional stair case, diving board, skateparks and other geometrical shapes in the sand.

In the beginning, Jamie used hand signals from the sand dunes to direct his friends on the beach where to draw the different points and parameters.

'But as times gone by I've become a bit more spatially aware I guess, and I can now kind of guess how elongated different areas are. So it doesn't take as many times visiting the perspective point anymore, I can kind of just remember it. I've got a bit of a vocabulary for it now you know.”

About three years ago, Jamie was inspired by a group of artists in New York who transformed an entire street into a 3D world of chalk drawings and decided to bring 3D to the beach.

'I got some books out in geometry and read and read,” says Jamie. 'But realised I wasn't really smart enough for the geometry side of it. It was very technical stuff and I really needed surveying gear to do it.

'So I thought there must be an easier way. So I just went out and had a go and I've just kind of been teaching myself ever since really.”

A Bachelor of Media Arts degree to his name, Jamie's also studied fine arts and has been painting for 20 years.

'Since I was a kid I've always been drawing on chalk boards. I didn't really know what I wanted to do until I was about 20 years old,” says Jamie.

'So I hid in the study world for years and sucked up as much information as I could; but this is totally me now, I'm totally involved in the creative world.

'I used to be a house painter and it was the most boring thing ever until I changed my attitude and saw the art form and I realised any job can be like that, you can turn it into your own art.”

Jamie works part-time three days a week in a café and has four days for art and music. He's slowly putting together creations for his upcoming paint exhibition this year.

His paintings are just as impressive as his sand art, but Jamie says it's the sand creations that's getting the most publicity. He was invited to an arts symposium in Israel Christmas 2015.

'I got there and they'd had a big environmental catastrophe, they'd had a lot of oil spill over one of the deserts so they were really pushing for me to tell everyone about that on the news.”

The TV interviews, showing some of Jamie's smaller artworks in the sand, were televised throughout Israel. But unsatisfied with the size of the artwork, Jamie went out into the Avara Desert to create a larger sand art.

'One day I went out in the desert and it was hard as rock everywhere. I was out there for nine hours scratching with a big steel rod.

'So I jumped in the car with some locals and we went off around all different parts of the desert and loaded up with different types of sand and soils and I just laid the sand on top instead of scratching underneath.

'The Israelis I met were lovely and the part of the country I went to was nothing as scary as what is represented on news back home. I hope to return to Israel someday.”