With a bundle of three-pronged tools and hand-assembled rakes cast over one shoulder, the artist Andres Amador quietly descends the steep, crumbling dunes arching over a San Francisco shoreline to the beach below.

Scanning the horizon, stopping every so often to smile and pick up smooth stones, he walks until it seems right – until he finds a wide enough stretch of wet sand to serve as his canvas. Soon, it will come to life, etched with the large-scale angles and arches that form his captivating, signature style of Earthscape art.

“It is a race against time,” he says while assembling his tools, and there is little time to waste. The tide that is retreating as he begins will soon regain its ground, sweeping over his work just moments after it is created. But, that is after all, part of the point.

“People have a hard time with this feeling of impermanence, of doing something that seems like it has no real purpose – which really is all art on some level,” he says, explaining that he tries to play the part of a contrarian. “But I am fully bought into the idea that there’s a much bigger thing occurring and the art plays a much bigger role than humanity, or at least our society, gives it credit for.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andres Amador on a beach near San Francisco. Photograph: Gabrielle Canon/The Guardian

Amador has sketched his sprawling artwork into sand across California, in Mexico, and on the other side of the world in New Zealand. The designs are always different but the results the same. Beach joggers, laughing children, and soggy dogs pause their seaside revelry to ponder the lanky man in a sunhat, who moves rhythmically, bouncing over large rocks jutting out of the shore, raking the sand as he goes.

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At first, the winding lines don’t look like much. But, with a quiet intensity, he soon rakes them into shape, working with care and precision to produce the fleeting piece of art that will astound those who chance upon it.

While his work was originally inspired by geometric shapes and constructed with straight lines, he has since expanded his technique, taking cues from the environment. His patterns and process, Amador says, replicate those that occur in nature. “In that sense, there is really a science component to the artwork.”

The point is personal: the 47-year-old spent most of his life seeing himself as more scientific and than artistic. Growing up in San Francisco, he rarely visited the beach. Instead, Amador says, he explored the city streets, finding inspiration in the scenes and structures. He got a BA in environmental science, served in the Peace Corps, and became a computer technician. That was, until a life-changing experience at the desert festival Burning Man gave him permission, as he describes it, to create just for the sake of creation.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Amador makes his artwork by raking the sand. Photograph: Gabrielle Canon/The Guardian

“I had to let go of stories I had within myself around who can be creative and what art is and what the value of art is,” he says, adding that part of his mission is to help others come to their own realizations. “In the past few years, I have come to understand my path moving forward, aside from the art, is teaching people about the creativity they have and the value everyone has to express it.”

He first began drawing in the sand with a stick while on a trip in Hawaii. In 2004, he created his first Earthscape art in the sand at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Ten years later, his passion became his full-time job – he now makes a living selling prints, creating commissioned art, and conducting workshops that help others experience and create their own beach pieces. The work has shaped the way he sees himself and engages with the world around him.

“It has been a huge evolution for me. The art has been guiding me within my own life, helping me let go of certainty and absolutes, instead being open to the mystery of what can emerge,” he says.

The finished piece on the beach stretches for thousands of feet and stops passersby in their tracks. With a drone, he takes a picture of the work from above, smiling at what was accomplished and humbly answering questions from the excited crowd that’s gathering. The water is already beginning to wash away the edges, but the day’s work is done.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A piece in the making. Photograph: Gabrielle Canon/The Guardian

Even if it is all soon going to wash away, “getting the idea out of my head and seeing it actualized is its own reward,” he says. He hopes his work will inspire others to appreciate the moment and to have the courage to express their own artistry, for its own sake.

“There is something deeper inside that we all have to offer, that doesn’t exist yet in the world,” he says. “The world deserves to have it.”