Eye Popping Pill Portraits of Celebrities Amy Winehouse, Heath Ledger & More.

Get a load of Jason Mecier's portraits of celebrities Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Courtney Love and Kelly Osbourne made with actual pills. While it's true that some of these subject's undoing was the medium itself, others, like Kelly Osbourne have successfully kicked the habit. Either way, these are interesting homages to them.






Be sure to check out the Red Vine, Candy and Junk mosaic portraits by this same artist, Jason Mecier and the self portrait comprised of Ecstacy tablets by bar code artist Scott Blake.

Mary Ellen Croteau Creates a Self Portrait with Thousands of Plastic Bottle Caps.

above: detail from CLOSE, a self-portrait of Mary Ellen Croteau made with plastic bottle caps

There seem to be an endless number of talented artists creating portraits using assemblages of unexpected items; licorice, junk, toys, pills, pencils, diamonds, pushpins and more. I have already featured nine different artists who create portraits from such items unusual work on this blog and now I'm introducing you to a tenth, Mary Ellen Croteau.

(click on each image below to see posts on each of these nine artists):



above: Top row. l to r: Bernard Pras' portrait of Bruce Lee, Zac Freeman's portrait of Garrett, Scott Blake's self portrait. Middle row, l to r: Jason Mercer's portrait of Kim Kardashian made with licorice vines, Christian Faur's portrait made of crayons, a diamond and sapphire gemstone portrait of Marilyn Monroe. Bottom row, l to r: Federico Uribe's portrait of a tiger made with pencils, Charles Manson made of rubik's cubes, and Eric Daigh's pushpin portrait.

Mary Ellen Croteau had been working with plastic bottle caps to create columnar sculptures, but while crafting these, she became compelled to create a large self-portrait with them.



She describes this inspiration below:
"Plastic bottle caps - like bags, a plastic product that can’t be/ isn’t recycled. I conceived of an “endless column” of these caps, after Constantin Brancussi’s (sic) iconic modernist sculpture. One became two, and two became many...:



...While making these columns, I noticed the smaller caps tended to nest inside one another, and the color combinations reminded me of Chuck Close’s painted portraits. So I got sidetracked and started on a large self-portrait made entirely of bottle caps. The piece measures 8 feet by 7 feet. No paint is used, except to delineate a few shadows where white board was showing through. In a few cases, the caps are trimmed in order to fit a tight space." - Mary Ellen Croteau



close-up of the nose:

close up of eye in progress:


The final assembled piece displayed for Art on Armitage:


Mary Ellen Croteau is an artist whose work directly addresses the absurdities of social norms, and lays bare the underlying bias and sexist assumptions on which our culture is constructed.
She lives and works in Chicago, IL.

See more of her unusual art here.

a shout out to This Is Colossal for bringing Mary's work to my attention

Art to Rave About. Self-Portrait Made Up Of Ecstacy Pills By Artist Scott Blake.

Artist Scott Blake, a Savannah College of Art and Design graduate, specializes in unique forms of digital mosaic and bar code art. A few years back, he created this self-portrait comprised of Ravers favorite drug, MDMA or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, more commonly known as Ecstacy or simply "e".






Scott collected all of the XTC pill images from Dancesafe.org, a harm reduction organization promoting safety within the rave community.

Pixel Dimensions - 5184 x 6480
File Size - 61.3 Megabytes
Color Mode - RGB Color
File Format - Photoshop Flattened
Individual Pill Pixel Dimensions - 144 x 144
Pills Generated - 256

See more of his work here.

Pieces Of You. Tasteful Custom Mosaic Portraits.

Okay, so having a giant portrait of yourself is a bit narcissistic. It is, however, a tradition that goes back centuries. Now, there's another way to immortalize yourself or a loved one in lieu of the traditional Sargent-like oil painting or the scary Sears Portrait Studio-style, shown below.



The Sicis Art Mosaic Factory, with showrooms all over the world, create stunning mosaic 'everything' from high-heeled bathtubs to lighting, mannequins and wall art. And now they offer tasteful custom mosaic portraits made from photographs.




The portraits comes in four standard sizes, and custom sizes are available. Two frame types are offered and you can choose a monochromatic or black and white portrait against a variety of colored backgrounds.



Several different colors and finishes are available for the backgrounds, as you can see from the options below:



The pieces are wonderful likenesses and are not garish as so many mosaics can be.









All images courtesy of SICIS.

The Sicis custom mosaic portraits are offered in New York, Paris and Milan.

Where to find SICIS Portrait:

Sicis Showroom a New York

Sicis Showroom a Paris

Sicis Showroom a Milan


See their mosaic Pin-up girls, rugs, and furniture here.

See their high heeled mosaic bathtbs and lighting here.

A More Expensive Option-Gemstone Portraits
If you'd like another unusual custom portrait option, albeit a very expensive one, check out these mosaic portraits made with real gemstones, like the diamond one of Jay-Z shown below.