Nonpareil Pet Portrait. One Sweet Beagle Made of 221,184 Colored Sprinkles.

What began as a university fine arts project on Pointillism and Georges Seurat by student Joel Brochu, evolved into a remarkable artistic idea.



What looks like an image of a beagle getting a bath (above) is actually a 4’ by 1 ½’ high definition photograph covered in 221,184 nonpareil sprinkles, each placed painstakingly by hand.



At a distance of 16 feet, the sprinkles blur, tricking the human eye into believing that it is looking at a large photograph. Only when you closely examine the work do you realize that it has been created entirely with tiny spheres of rainbow nonpareils.







Meticulously placed by hand using jewelry tweezers, the sprinkles adhere to the board with the help of double sided tape and a thin layer of glue.




Using only 6 colors of sprinkles (Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Black, and White), a myriad of hues was created.




Joel used a customized computer program, in which a template was created from the original image which guided the placement of each sprinkle. Taking just under 8 months to complete, once finished, it was permanently preserved with a clear acrylic resin.

Sweet, huh?

A big shoutout to Betsy Wills and her wonderful blog, Artstormer, for bringing this unique piece to my attention. Most images courtesy of Joel Brochu

Dot to Dot to Divine. Incredible Portraits by Thomas Pravitte.

Melbourne, Australia based illustrator, graphic designer, artist and typographer Thomas Pravitte dabbles in many unusual forms of art. One of his most impressive and unique projects is that of labor-intensive line drawings connected by thousands of dots.



Take a look at his dot-to dot Mona Lisa, which consisted of 6,239 dots and took over 9 hours to complete.




He sells limited edition prints of his Mona Lisa:

A time lapse video of the creation of his dot-to-dot Mona Lisa:


Do It Yourself Dot to Dot Portrait Templates
But here's what I really find fascinating. He has created and sells dot-to-dot templates that combine two related images in one. The dot to dot templates are color-coded in sets of 100 making them easier to follow and YOU actually complete the drawings yourself, seeing them unfold in first one portrait, and then two, topped off with your own signature.

Let me explain visually. We'll start with his Michael Jackson dot-to-dot portrait which combines the young Michael Jackson and the mature Michael Jackson so you can of what I am speaking.

Here is what the image looks like prior to any connecting of the dots:

Beginning to connect the dots:

and voila! First you get young Michael Jackson...

and then as you continue to draw,

a more mature Michael Jackson appears:

The sequence of the drawings:

The final portrait:


Monkey Jesus:
As you start, a monkey appears. Continue to draw and another image surfaces:

The sequence of the drawing:

And finally, Monkey Jesus!


Yes, You Can - Obama:

And the final portrait:


Buy these limited edition Do It yourself Dot to Dot portraits.

Don't Panic features an interview with Thomas Pravitte that you should check out here.

See all of Thomas' interesting work here on Behance.

Shoot, That's Fun. The Bullet Hole Art Of Walt Creel.

above image courtesy of The Birmingham News

Walt Creel of Birmingham, Alabama uses a deadly weapon, ironically, to create images of sweet Southern wildlife. Brandishing a rifle, he fires .22 caliber bullets through 4' x 6' white painted aluminum panels to form images of a deer, an owl, a rabbit, a possum, a squirrel and bird in his project, De-Weaponizing The Gun.


detail of Rabbit:


The pointillist-like art is as interesting to admire up close as it is from afar, and is the artist's attempt at taking away the destructive power of the gun.

Squirrel:

The finished image of Squirrel [above] and creating the piece [below].

Deer:

Close -up of deer:

Bird:

Possum:

Rabbit:

Owl:


DEWEAPONIZING THE GUN by Walton Creel

In the artist's own words:
The terms gun and weapon are practically interchangeable. From hunting to war, self defense to target practice, the gun has been a symbol of power and destruction. Art and entertainment have both taken the same approach to he gun. Traveling Wild West shows had gunslingers that shot crude silhouettes and names, but this was done to illustrate the shooters prowess. Some artists have used high speed film to capture a bullet slicing through its target, while other artists have melted guns into sculptures.



When I decided I wanted to make art using a gun, I was not sure what direction I would have to take. I knew I did not want to use it simply as an accent to work I was doing, but as the focus. My main goal was to take the destructive power away from the gun. To manipulate the gun into a tool of creation and use it in a way that removed it from its original purpose, to deweaponize it.



During my first experiment I came across the concept of creating an image hole by hole on a surface. I also figured out that canvas would be too stressed by the process of a rifle firing many bullets into it.

A test firing of the bullets into canvas:


I moved on to aluminum and, with further experimentation, I figured out exactly how far apart my shots needed to be and that moving beyond .22 caliber was simply too destructive. When the aluminum was painted beforehand, the blast of the gun knocked off a tiny amount of paint around each hole, which helped fuse the image together.



images courtesy of the artist and the Coleman Center For The Arts,

Deweaponizing the Gun is an ongoing series presented in installments.