“Grass is like photographic paper which becomes pigmented upon exposure to light. The more intense the light exposure, the more intensely pigmented the grass becomes. By exposing plots of seedling grass to light through a custom-made negative, Surrey, England-based Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey makes the grass grow in different shades, from yellow to green creating unique portraits out of them. After a couple of weeks, when the growing process is complete faces or landscapes starts appearing in the grass.” w/ photos

“Joe Mangrum was a painter for many years, but only started creating art with sand in the Fall of 2009. He chose to work with sand because it’s an ephemeral medium that can simply be swept away at the the end of the day, after he’s had a chance to express his talent and amaze passers-by. I never thought sprinkling colored sand through the bottom of your fist could lead to such amazing works of art, but Mangrum’s creations prove patience and talent are the basis of truly incredible things. The gifted street artist spends hours on end on his hands and knees sprinkling his colored sand onto the sidewalk to create ephemeral masterpieces that catch the eye of everyone around him.” w/ photos

“Although it must be fun working with jelly beans for a living, making 4 x 6 feet murals out of them is definitely painstaking work. Cumings uses between 8,000 and 12,000 jelly beans for her stunning masterpieces and it takes over 50 hours to complete each one. She starts the artistic process by looking at a close up of the reference photo, and then visualizes where each colored jelly bean has to go. She then paints an acrylic version of the photo on a blank canvas, and once that dries, she begins applying the small beans and tries to match the colors as best she can. The painter/illustrator uses spray adhesive to make sure the jelly beans stick, and usually likes to start her artworks by recreating the main features, like the eyes and nose. Then she just starts applying the other jelly beans from the bottom up until the piece is completed.” w/ photos + video

“Archival footage of an Iron Man design using StarkPaint on an 1984 Starkintosh (which looks a lot like MacPaint on a 1984 Macintosh).” — MattsMacintosh

“Nice vid, that must have taken forever. I wish I had that kind of patience.” — B.A.777

“If you’ve been throwing away orange and tangerine peels all this time, then you’ve been missing out on a very fun way to make figurines for your little ones. Using a lot of imagination and a sharp blade, Yoshihiro Okada has been creating detailed figurines out of citrus fruits. It all started six years ago, when he noticed the peel he had removed from a tangerine looked a little like a scorpion. Most everyone else would have probably smiled and moved on with their lives, but not Yoshihiro. He spent the next two weeks buying loads of tangerines and practicing his peeling technique until he got his scorpion just right. The fruit peel artist didn’t rest on his laurels, he kept practicing, and he is now able to create over 80 different animals from a single tangerine peel, ranging from monkeys to rabbits and horses.” w/ photo + videos

“Looking at Shelley Miller’s artworks for the first time, you’d think they were carved in stone, but in reality the talented artist just applies cake icing using a common pastry bag and paints them with edible blue paint. Trained at the Alberta College of Art and Design and Concordia University, Miller has experienced with a variety of art mediums, ranging from sand to marble, but always found herself returning to sugar. She also spent some time decorating cakes during her university days, but quickly moved on to bigger and better things, and now she is internationally-known for her unique street art sugar murals.” w/ photos

“Although he uses a projection of the image he’s trying to replicate, as reference, the precision with which he cuts each little piece of wire mesh is nothing short of impressive. Just so you understand the kind of skill required to pull off something like this, it’s important that you know each of his portraits is made up of several layers of wire mesh set a few centimeters apart, each sculpted by hand. The understanding of depth perception and the patience necessary to complete just one of these amazing works of art is simply awe-inspiring.” w/ photos + video

“Ben Campbell, a dude who refers to himself as ‘some kind of artist from west Texas’, sent us these photos of a life-size mummy he created out of about $200 worth of McDonald’s food. You’re probably thinking Ben needs a better hobby, but you have to remember he’s not just some guy with nothing better to do, he’s some kind of artist, so he has a pretty good explanation for creating his unique McDonald’s food mummy. Apparently, for the last couple of months, Campbell has been working on an art show to highlight the connection between ancient Egypt and modern society, and his meat mummy is the centerpiece.” w/ photos

“Artist Raul Lemesoff took an old 1979 Ford Falcon, a popular mode of transport amongst the military forces of its time, and transformed it into a mobile library shaped like a tank. His portable project titled Arma De Instruccion Masiva, translated as Weapon of Mass Instruction, roams the streets of Buenos Aires, attacking its people with knowledge. More than just an art stunt, Lemesoff’s project is educating his community by sharing knowledge in the form of books. The tank is comprised of approximately 900 books at any given time.” w/ photos

“The beautiful Shanghai-based artist decided to pay tribute to Chinese film director Yimou Zhang by creating a large-scale monochromatic portrait of him with socks. She first got the idea for her unique work of art while strolling on a tiny alleyway in Shanghai. It was filled with clotheslines made of bamboo sticks with various clothing items hanging above her, and she remembers being surprised to find such a traditional side of life in a modern, bustling city like Shanghai. The unusual art medium is also a connection to Yimou Zhang who uses bamboo sticks in his period films, as well as in the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony he directed.” w/ photos

“I find it amazing how some artists can simply guide a paintbrush to create photograph-like artworks that almost always fool the naked eye. Case in point, Thomas Arvid, a self-taught painter who creates wine-related paintings that look like professional high-resolution photos. In the past, we’ve featured amazing works by talented artists the likes of Alyssa Monks or Denis Peterson, but Arvid’s creations really are unlike any I’ve ever seen. His incredibly realistic compositions of wine completely redefine still life and put the Marietta-based artist at the forefront of the hyperrealist art movement. Thomas’ mastery of light, depth and reflection, as well as his ability to capture a traditional subject like wine in a completely new style have brought him international acclaim.” w/ photos

“We first featured Judith Braun’s finger paintings a few months ago, but while her artworks were beautiful then, she hadn’t created anything as impressive as this latest charcoal mural. I mean, looking at the photos… can you believe she painted exclusively with her fingertips? The 12-foot by 48-foot masterpiece was created using Braun’s signature technique, which basically involves her covering her fingertips with ground charcoal and guiding them across the canvas. Entitled Diamond Dust, this magnificent piece is Judith Braun’s largest site-specific project to date.” w/ photos

“This is how women act in front of the mirror before a date… also explains why they eventually still look the same.” — mattysupe

“The process and creation of a screw painting by artist Andrew Myers is featured here in a short form documentary by filmmaker Benjamin Pitts.”

“Doodling with chalk was one of my favorite pastimes, as a kid. I remember I spent hours trying to draw simple things like people, butterflies, or animals, but my works never looked as good as what Rustam Valeev creates. In fact, the only other person I know who can create such realistic artworks is Paul Cadden, who renders photorealistic masterpieces with graphite and chalk. But while Paul draws on paper, Rustam practices his skills on rough pavement. Although his street art hasn’t been featured by any important Western media outlets, his beautiful portraits have gone viral on some of the most popular sites in Russia.” w/ photos

“It’s like Where’s Waldo, only real… It’s all fun and games until someone draws a circle around him.” — markpharchezzi

“Just imagine if he had nearly finished then he sneezed on it.” — casinoBC

“They need to reproduce immediately.” — rolfsrudmn

“A quick Apple ipad live fingerpainting demo that I streamed live from my Brooklyn studio on Monday… The model sat for 3 hours as I painted and answered questions on how I use the iPad and the Brushes app. Just thinking of creative uses for the ipad.” — DavidKassan

“You can only imagine the coughs and splutters from certain more traditional quarters when the idea for the Happy Rizzi House was first mooted to the council of a historical German city. SpongeBob SquarePants might be happy taking up residence inside its day-glo walls but some of the elders of the ancient German city of Brunswick (Braunschweig in German) were most certainly not amused. Worse still, the planners wanted it to be placed in the city’s most historic area, the Magni quarter. Many were agog that this outrageous idea could even be proposed, let alone accepted.” w/ photos

“Fire and explosion seems to be a very popular art theme these days. We’ve recently covered the works of Radya Timofey, a 23-year-old artist who paints with Molotov cocktails, and Rob Tarbell, who guides the smoke of open flames to create detailed artworks, so Cai Guo Qiang fits right in. The famous Chinese artist started using gun powder as an art medium in 1989, when he used fuse lines to create explosions that lasted between 1 and 15 seconds, for public audiences. But his works has evolved a great deal since then, and he now uses modern technology to create much more detailed works, and even aerial explosions supervised by experienced pyrotechnicians.” w/ photos + video

“Throughout the years we’ve featured a lot of talented artists with the power of turning everyday objects into stunning masterpieces, and today we’re proud to add Yoan Capote to our ever-growing list. The Cuban artist is famous for the way he manages to take common household objects and create beautiful artworks, but I think his latest creation is also his most impressive one. Named Isla, the 26-foot-wide mural was assembled out of half a million intertwined fishhooks, nails and oil. Looking at it from a distance, you’d think it’s just a photo of the calm open sea, but as you draw near, the secret behind the realistic seascape is revealed. Even with the help of 30 assistants, Yoan Capote took months to complete his fascinating fishhook mural.” w/ photos

“This guy writes better with a broom than anybody I know writes with a pen! And the whole thing is done in water, so it just fades away as it dries.” — BoldInterventions

“It took artist Peter Root three weeks to create his city of potatoes with nothing more than a knife, a bicycle repair kit, 176 pounds of potatoes, and a dream. Root’s cityscape, which he named Plot, was created in Istanbul, Turkey. Though Plot was not modeled directly from from the Istanbul, Root says that he’s taken certain aspects of the city into the design.” w/ photos

“Total master, I can´t imagine the time/dedication put into this.” — NisseEricsson

“Dust paintings… now here’s something you don’t see every day, right? Well, actually, just a month ago we posted a story about Alessandro Ricci, an Italian artist who paints with dust collected from historical buildings in Florence. But while his dust creations are more like environmental statements against the pollution in his home city, Allison Cortson’s paintings are much more elaborate, and have a completely different purpose. Through her dust paintings, the artist tries to emphasize the fact that ‘matter is mostly empty space’ and it’s only through interactivity with living beings that they provide any value. That’s why, in all of her Dust Paintings artworks the human subjects are painted in color, while the background is recreated with dust.” w/ photos

“A self-proclaimed ‘treenut’ Kevin Iris has been making incredibly detailed tree sculptures from aluminum wire for the last 23 years. His works vary in shape and size, as he’s trying to inspire different emotions with each one, but the most remarkable thing that’s common to all of them is that they are made only out of twisted wire. That means he uses no glue, coatings or any other substances. He simply takes tens of feet of aluminum wire and twists them into a variety of shapes. As you can imagine, Kevin’s artistic process is very laborious and time-consuming.” w/ photos

“Sarah Harvey from London paints in oil but her scenarios are so realistic they look just like photographs. She starts by taking photographs that she places on top of one another on her computer and then bases her paintings on the resulting images.” — D.S.E

“An artist has painstakingly created a series of beautiful murals made from nothing but staples tacked onto a wall. The pictures you’re looking at are the works of French artist Baptiste Debombourg, and a part of a collection named Aggravure. His last artwork, Aggravure III, took him 340 hours to complete and consists of over half a million staples.” w/ photos