PlanetOddity.com » Lifestyle

Unbelievably Realistic Paintings

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:15:28 +0000

At first I thought this was real black and white photographs, but then I realized it was paintings. Amazing is the perfect word for Spanish painter Juan Bautista Nieto’s work. And if you wonder how he can draw such perfect human bodies, the answer is: he studied medicine before studying art.

He uses a combination of acrylic and oil paint, and he paints with an air-brush method. He uses a lot of time on each painting because he wants it all to be very detailed, so he produced a couple of paintings every year.

He says himself that only one painting take about 6 to 9 months to finish. In his work you will see a lot of female bodies, either dressed or half undressed.

The work is so delicate that you can sit a really long time just staring at them trying to figure out one flaw that would make it look more like a painting than a photo. Other realistic paintings are these cinematic paintings.

The Perfect 1960′s American Town

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:16:13 +0000

An typical American town from the 1960′s, untouched like it has frozen in time. How is that even possible? Well, at first glance this looks like a real town with all the Chevys parked around, the cinema, the toy stores and all the dining places. It’s like entering a movie scene, but where are the people?

You will maybe be disappointed when you hear that this is a miniature town built by Michael Paul Smith. He has called this little kingdom Elgin Park, and it’s a mental combination of memory and fiction brought to life by this great artist.

The photos he takes of his little town look freakishly real. He has even brought some rain to one of the scenes, and with the lights and all it just looks like reality. This is a proof that camera or photos can lie.

Photos of Elgin Park has been launched in a book that you can buy on Amazon. Speaking of miniature models, take a look at the world’s smallest aquarium with baby fish swimming around.

Stunning And Delicate Toothpick Art

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:57:43 +0000

Most of us use toothpicks after eating or maybe for some detailed work like nail art. This guy is using it to make art. Amazing! His name is Steven J. Backman and for him every toothpick can be made into a famous landmark replica. The sculptures are so small that it’s ridiculously difficult to even imagine how he does it.

He uses only toothpicks and glue, and for some of the sculptures he is even using only 1 toothpick. Of course he fails a lot of times before he finally makes one that’s perfect, because a toothpick is obviously very fragile. The landmarks are for example the Eiffel Tower, Golden Gate Bridge, The White House and Empire State Building.

He has also used several toothpicks to make illustrations of Mona Lisa, etc. Toothpick art has been popular for quite some time. Here you can see the biggest and tallest toothpick structure ever.

Beautiful Vintage Photos Of Moscow

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:03:25 +0000

Moscow is such a beautiful town with so much to see. It has always been that way it seems. You can see some amazing photos from 1909 of this capital. They were taken by an American that came to Moscow on an exhibition tour with a group of American champion trotting horses. The traveler had a Graflex box camera and took about 400 photos from the trip.

He was even arrested several times for taking unauthorized pictures, so he did experience a lot. Only 38 of those photographs are used in the museum exhibition “Empire and Empathy – Vintage Photographs of Russia”.

The photographer was obviously skilled or at least he got a lot of practice because the photos are amazing, and the obvious black-and-white style makes it even more adventurous in a way.

It’s always exciting to see how the big cities looked like back then. Some other photos of the whole Soviet that are worth seeing are these ones from 1922 – 1991.

Anamorphosis At Its Best

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:52:58 +0000

Without a cylindrical mirror these paintings would look meaningless. This kind of art is called Anamorphosis and comes from the Greek words meaning “formed again.” It’s basically paintings that can be viewed only with a special device. In this case a cylindrical mirror is the solution, and the amazing paintings are made by Indian artist Awtar Singh Virdi.

He holds a record in Guinness World Record for the largest anamorphic portrait made in 2004. He started with anamorphosis when he one day saw his distorted reflection on a very clean car at at Mercedes Benz training center at Jamshedpur where he worked some time. He went home and practiced each day his skills on making amazing anamorphosis paintings.

He makes portraits of very known people like George W Bush, Mother Teresa and Amitabh Bachchan among many others. This kind of art can remind somehow on this artist’s work; he makes enormous portraits that can only be viewed from the sky.

Stunning 150 Years Old 3D Photos

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:15:20 +0000

We are all aware of the fact that there were no 3D effects 150 years ago. Well, maybe that’s just a theory, because they actually had something alike 3D that they called stereo photography. It was pretty popular during the Civil War in 1861. Here you can see a selection of Civil War photographs that have some kind of 3D effect.

They were all released by The Library of Congress recently. They basically used two 2D images and “melted” them together, so it would look three-dimensional.

The method they used was some sort of digitally converting that made the two images into an anaglyphs, that can be viewed with 3D glasses.

The library has its own Flickr page and website where you can find thousands of photos. Looking at the 3D photos without glasses can be a bit disturbing.

Photoshop didn’t either exist back in the days, but here are some amazing photo montages that are done without it.

Artists Celebrating 20th Anniversary Of Edward Scissorhands

Tue, 24 May 2011 17:47:36 +0000

It has been 20 years since Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder played in Edward Scissorhands. The romantic fantasy film directed by Tim Burton was a sensation. It’s the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands. He falls in love with a teenage girl, but it gets complicated.

To celebrate the 20 years anniversary a bunch of artist have gathered and made their interpretation of Scissorhands. 40 beautiful illustrations were made and here you can see some of them. The styles are very different but extremely unique. Some are prints, others are paintings or drawings.

There were no limits, something that every artist desire. The art pieces are all gathered in Gallery Nucleus, but also on a blog of artist Seb Mesnard which dedicated that blog especially for this 20th anniversary. Enjoy the contributions. A similar thing was done to celebrate the Star Wars movies by gathering 100 artists that made their unique Darth Vader helmet.

Realistic And Stunning Cinematic Paintings

Thu, 05 May 2011 13:32:39 +0000

These are oil paintings, some very realistic ones too. The talented artist Joe Simpsons is the one that’s painting these breathtaking pieces of art, you have probably heard of him already. It looks like different scenes from movies, and that is the effect he wanted. Theatrical lighting and wide screen format is the tricks that he has been using a lot. If you can notice, every painting has some sort of sad plot.

Either it’s someone that is leaving or someone writing a painful letter. Dark colors and rain is also used to make it all look dramatic. Not to mention how detailed the characters on the paintings are, you can easily read their face expressions. Other amazing painting pieces are these paintings of Skype models, some of them famous actors.

Painful Wall Cracks Filled Up With Lego Joy

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:12:23 +0000

We all just love LEGO, and it doesn’t mean that you have to be uninterested in it just because you are an adult. This artist has got that, and here are his amazing street art. His name is Jan Vormann, and he is using all the cracks in different walls of the streets in Berlin to fill it up with Lego bricks.

The holes are not just any kind of wholes, it is the ones that are left after the World War II. Maybe it is a symbol to forget about the pain of the war, and cover up the spots that can remind of misery. After a while a lot of people started to find cracks of their own and fill up the empty space with colorful Lego bricks.

You will maybe be surprised that a lot of old people joined the project as well. The streets of Berlin can not be any more cuter than they are now. Lego bricks has been used to so many different art pieces, like for example to create the LEGO replica of Las Vegas.

Tons of Punching Bags Create Muhammad Ali Portrait

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:56:50 +0000

If you would built a portrait or a sculpture of Muhammad Ali, what would be the best tool to use? Punching bags of course! What could better represent a boxer than that? The same thought had Los Angeles-based artist Michael Kalish when he made a 22-foot high installation of Mohammad Ali’s portrait.

There were used 6.5 miles stainless steel cable, 1300 punching bags, and 2500 pounds of aluminum pipe. The funny thing is that you only can see his portrait from one side, all of the other angles don’t make any sense, you can only see a bunch of punching bags hanging.

The project took three whole years to finish and Muhammad Ali is supposed to hang the final bag at the ceremony on LA’s Nokia Plaza. From far away the portrait look like a stencil, very simple but original. I guess the boxer himself is glad for this honor that he is getting. While Kalish is making portraits out of punching bags, another artist is carving them out of phonebooks.