“Only the faces and hands of the saints in Denshchikov’s icons are painted on canvas, everything else is made from millions of linen knots. The artist doesn’t use any tools, like needles or crochets to make the knots, all the patterns and details are created directly by hand. The material used for these incredible artworks is created by the artist himself: he takes a piece of pure linen cloth (a fabric associated with Orthodox Faith), soaks it in water and takes it apart one string at a time. He uses linen threads between 1.6 and 6.4 feet long and works between 3 and 6 months on a single 15×19 inch icon. It might sound like a long time, but let’s not forget one of these things numbers up to nine million tiny knots, each made by hand.” w/ photos

“The incredible ‘works of Seo Young Deok are clearly inspired by the shapes of the human body, but artists have been sculpting masterpieces based on our natural curves for hundreds of years. What makes this Korean designer special is the material he uses for his unique creations – bicycle chains. Miles of metal chains, to be exact, welded in such a way that they recreate the human body to the finest details. Deok says he finds inspiration for his art in crowded markets, and metro or bus stations, but also in Buddhist sculptures and paintings, which he has always admired. ‘I like Asia Beauty’ he says, ‘so most features of my work seem to take an Asiatic pose.” w/ photos

“Welcome to ‘Metalmorphosis’ – a giant sculpture that forms part of a public fountain bringing an office park to life in the city of Charlotte, USA with its reflecting flashes of light and imposing metallic surface. This marvelous creation from David Cerny is a seven meter high structure of a three-dimensional male’s head, composed of horizontally-moving stainless steel plates, which separate different sections of the head, creating a twisting edge to its exterior.” w/ photos

“Believe it or not, this was my biggest effort on any videos I’ve done. It took the most time, the most patience, the most research and the most money to create. Surprisingly one of the hardest things was to find bulk colored push pins. I ended up having to order about 40,000 push pins in “variety packs” in order to get all of the colors I needed. There are approximately 15,000 push pins in the portrait. I worked on it a little each day for about a month. The final portrait weighs about 40 pounds, which includes the cork board. I built a wooden frame to support it. I was afraid that when I lifted it, it would break under it own weight. So the frame worked out perfectly. In the video it looks like there is a problem with the forehead, but it’s just the light reflecting.” — brusspup

“An artist has created a menagerie of enormous animals – made entirely of scaffolding. Ben Long, 33, spent months in Lancaster building a larger-than-life dog, stag and horse out of metal poles and screws. The sculptures, which measure an incredible 30ft high, each took three weeks to build using a scaffolding spanner and a further six months to perfect… Remarkably, considering the work that goes into them, Ben only leaves the sculptures up for around six months before dismantling them to use in his next project.” w/ photos

“A sculpture of Jesus on the cross made entirely from wire coat hangers has been put on display at Southwark Cathedral. Tuner Prize nominee David Mach’s piece, entitled Die Harder, depicts the figure of Christ screaming in agony. The dramatic sculpture was made from 3,000 coat hangers with the hooks straightened so they appear to be sticking out of the body. Mr Mach said: ‘The figure of Christ is in pain and anguish pierced by thousands of spears, that single body acting as a conduit for all the cares and the woes.” w/ photos

“Pieces of shattered CDs are pretty hard to work with when you’re trying to recreate an organic shape, but somehow Sean Avery manages to piece together animal and bird models that look amazingly realistic. Using special layering techniques, he is able to make something as pointy and sharp as CD shards look as smooth as feathers or animal fur. ‘I blend many different man made materials together to make them appear strangely organic, with a distinct sense of movement’ the artist reveals about his unique process.” w/ photos

“This is shown through the portrait as a whole – how it’s formed by many individual rings, many of them broken and imperfect like fallen autumn leaves, forming Jay Chou’s portrait. The story of the song is about a girl who traveled forward 20 years in time and met Jay in 1999, and they fell in love. She then went back to 1979 and sketched out the portrait of him. My painting is meant to look like a sepia-toned old photograph to capture the essence of this story.” — ohiseeRED

“Although she considers the informative purpose of the newspaper important, Petter has been fascinated with this unusual art medium because it presents her with a black/white/and limited color palette, which she has always preferred. In 1986, when she first arrived in California, she laid eyes on a stack of discarded newspapers yellowed by the sun, and found it very intriguing. From that day forth she started thinking about ways she could use this material in her art. She started by rolling newspapers into tubes and creating wall and floor sculptures, but after a couple of years she developed her weaving technique.” w/ photos

“It was this delicate and detailed venation that inspired Jenine Shereos to create her awe-inspiring series of human hair leaves. She began by stitching strands of hair into a water-soluble backing material, making a tiny knot every time one strand of hair intersected another. This way, when the backing was dissolved, the leaf was able to hold its original shape. The artist says the whole process was meditative, as she found herself ‘lost in the detail of the small, organic microcosms that began taking shape.” w/ photos