I’ve always found quilling a fascinating art form, but after seeing Yulia Brodskaya’s mind-blowing “Babushka” I feel there’s nothing a talented artist can’t do with just a few colorful strips of paper.

I discovered quilling a year ago, and since then I have posted a number of impressive works of art created using only strips of colorful paper, but I haven’t seen anything as impressive as Babushka since Susan Myers’ recreation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It takes a lot of skill to shape simple pieces of paper into a detailed artwork, but Yulia Brodskaya has definitely taken quilling to new heights, using light and shadow to create an awe-inspiring masterpiece that carries a powerful emotional message. The Russian-born artist says Babushka is “the first piece in the series of works which I consider a declaration of love to the material and the technique. It is also an attempt to raise a profile of this paper craft, which has been previously regarded with some disdain, and to bring this type of artwork on a new level in terms of its ability to convey meaning and emotions.” She’s definitely up to a great start and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

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Alex Wer is an awesome artist who can take just about any image and turn it into a piece of everlasting art, by carving it into a craft pumpkin. His Halloween creations look so almost to good to be real.

Alex Wer, also known as “The Pumpkin Geek” first started exercising his awesome talent as a pumpkin carver two years ago, by accident. His wife asked him to carve a pumpkin for her office Open House, and since he had always enjoyed carving pumpkins, he thought it would be fun. He only has a few weeks until Halloween, so he had to decide between carving a real pumpkin that would spoil within a week, or go for a craft pumpkin that could theoretically last forever. He went for the second option, and although he only created a logo and some script, Alex’s pumpkin was a hit at his wife’s event. Before he knew it he had 35 orders for custom logos and children pictures, and his “Orange Empire” was born.

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Using a style known as pictorialism, Chinese artist Dong Honh-Oai was able to create a series of amazing photographs that look like Chinese traditional paintings.

Born in 1929, in Guangzhou, China’s Guangdong province, Dong Hong-Oai left his home country when he was just 7, after the sudden death of his parents. The youngest of 24 siblings, he was sent to live within the Chinese community of Saigon, Vietnam. There he became an apprentice at a photography studio owned by Chinese immigrants and learned the basics of photography. During this time he became particularly interested in landscape photography, which he practiced in his spare time. At 21, after doing a series of odd jobs, he became a student at the Vietnam National Art University.

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Venezuelan artist Jesus Gonzales Rodriguez creates mind-twisting images by putting together multiple photographs of a person and cutting along the edges. Every image is made up of a frontal and side-view photograph pieced together to form an optical illusion in which the portraits look normal at a glance, but only until your eyes detect the outlying visage. The photos below are part of Rodriguez’s “1/2” project, which you can check out on his Flickr profile. Pretty impressive work…(still trying to figure out which way they’re facing)

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Jeremy Kirsch has creates what is probably the world’s first photographic sequin mosaic, comprised of 50,625 independently-mounted sequins, which move and sparkle when they catch the light.

The artist from Glendale, California created this unique work of art for the ArtPrize 2011 competition, where although it didn’t win the big prize, it caught the eye of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! “How this piece didn’t win the big money at the contest I will never know, said Edward Meyer, VP Exhibits and Archives for Ripley’s. “Everyone was talking about it as the “must see” piece. I fell in love with it instantly, and considered it the number one “must have” piece for Ripley’s from this year’s Artprize.”

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Young C Park, a retired dentist from Honolulu, Hawaii, spends thousands of hours painstakingly working on fully functional models of famous fighter planes.

Every little part of Mr. Park’s planes is a miniature replica of the original. He spends hours on end manipulating aluminum into chains, cable and hinges for his creations and doesn’t leave his workstation until every part is up to his high standards. It might seem a little extreme considering we’re talking about models, but the 77-year-old retired dentist is very passionate about his planes and always aims to execute perfect replicas of the machines that have fascinated him throughout his life. His 1/16 scale models have retracting landing gear and working controls, but the levers are so tiny you need fine tweezers to operate them.

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Last Sunday was the first official Steve Jobs day, but instead of wearing jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, Montreal-based artist Olivier Lefebvre decided to honor the Apple co-founder in a very unique way – a portrait made from real apples.

Ever since his death early this month, people all around the world have been celebrating Steve Jobs and his huge contribution to modern technology. I’ve seen quite a number of inspiring works of art created in his honor lately, but I found Olivier Lefebvre’s organic portrait the most impressive. The Canadian artist painstakingly arranged 3,750 apples to depict the face of Apple’s charismatic co-founder, in the town of Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec. And before anyone starts screaming things like “what a waste of good food”, you should know these were all deer apples, meaning they had fallen on the ground and started rotting. Lefebvre himself commented on Geeks are Sexy’s blog post saying: “I find it important to mention to all of you that all the Apples used where deer apples, I would never use human consumption grade food for art. So yeah i got my hands dirty. Made for a really nice apple aroma tho!”

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World-renown balloon artist Adam Lee has set a new world record for the largest balloon sculpture, with a giant spider made from almost 3,000 balloons. Did we mention he’s afraid of spiders?

Adam began his attempt to set a new world record on October 1, at Great Wolf Lodge, in Grand Mound, Washington, and after six days of weaving balloons into a giant version of one of the creatures he’s most afraid of, the talented artist reached his goal. “After working 10 hour days for six days straight, I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome,” Lee said about his experience. His scary inflatable creation measures 45 feet 2 inches wide and 22 feet 2 inches long and was created from almost 3,000 balloons. Too help guests realize just how big his spider really is, he explained that “”If I would have laid the inflated balloons end-to-end, they would have stretched for almost two-and-a-half miles!”

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Singaporean photographer Fong Qi Wei likes to pick apart flowers by hand and rearrange them on blank a canvas, creating incredible works of art.

In a series entitled “Exploded Flowers” 33-year-old Fong Qi Wei disassembles popular flowers like the rose, lotus or orchid, carefully rearranges  their components on a blank white canvas and then takes photos of them. The results are totally different than the flowers themselves, but just as beautiful and impressive. ” “Each of the images are done in one sitting, simply because flowers are amongst the most perishable things – so I cannot leave it half finished and work on it the next day as some petals may have wilted or dried up by then. I find that there is always a surprising amount of detail which we do not usually notice in flowers.” the artist says about his exploded flowers.

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In one of the most impressive advertising ideas I have ever seen, Singapore-based art director and designer Chan Hwee Chong uses a single long line to create spiral recreations of famous artworks.

In an inspired advertising campaign for Faber-Castell, designer Chan Hwee Chong demonstrates his unbelievable talent by creating spiral illustrations inspired by some of the most popular masterpieces in history. Using the above mentioned company’s pens, he starts with a blank canvas, and by drawing a continuous line in a spiral he somehow manages to make detailed reproductions of the famous works of art. The level of precision and control in Chong’s creations is simply amazing, and although I watched a short video of him in action, I’m still not sure how he manages to achieve such detailed reproductions with a single line.

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I didn’t think one could use a sewing machine for anything but sewing, but this guy proves it’s the perfect tool to create realistic portraits.

I found this video during my daily browsing sessions, and knew I just had to post it for you guys to see, I haven’t been able to identify the skilled artist yet, but even though the video was uploaded by a Russian blogger, the protagonists speak English so I’m pretty sure the guy’s American. If anyone knows who he is, let me know so I can credit him for this awe-inspiring performance. You have to see the video to believe it, but long story short, this man sews a portrait of a female model into a piece of leather using just a sewing machine, and does it all in just a few minutes. All throughout the video I was sure he was going to sew his finger into the art piece, that’s how close his finger was to the needle…Amazing stuff!

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With a little help from her friends and a lot of recycled cardboard, singer-songwriter Hilary Grist has created an 8-foot-long, 5-foot-wide cardboard piano topped by a miniature cardboard city.

‘This is one craziest things I’ve ever done and my most ambitious arts and crafts project to date!” Hilary said about the project that should have spanned over two or three days, but eventually took over two months to complete. ‘It seemed like a fairly simple task in the beginning but let me tell you, once you start building a cardboard city – you just can’t stop!’ says Hilary, who built the recycled work of art in her 600 square foot studio apartment. ‘The piano city combines art and green awareness in a really fun way, I hope that it can be on display to show people what can be done with re-using in a creative way.’ the artist says about her recycled masterpiece.

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Kate Askegaard of Dixon, Illinois has spent 1,500 hours of her life recreating a classic masterpiece using only dots the size of a pin tip, for the annual ArtPrize Contest. This what is called a labor of love.

Looking at Kate’s masterpiece from afar, you’d think it’s just another well-done recreation of Michelangelo’s “Pieta”, but after a close inspection you realize it’s actually made of millions of tiny dots. Entitled “True Love” this unique piece was created for the 2011 ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It started out with Askegaard’s wish to prove to herself that she was a good artist, and she got it into her head that if she could capture what Michelangelo did with his Pieta, and the public would respond, than she could call herself a good artist. Kate referenced a 12in x 12in photo of the classic artwork, which she gridded out into over 10,000 squares. She used 9 sheets of paper, each 19in x 24in, glued them on a 5ft x 5ft canvas and finally painted black around the image.

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Zaira Pulido is a Colombian artist who uses long strands of human hair instead of thread to create embroidered works of art.

Bogota-based Zaira Pulido has been asking every one of her friends and people she’s into for strands of their hair to use in a series of embroidered artworks. She uses the human hair instead of the usual thread and creates various works, like embroidered portraits of her friends (each made with their own hair), an embroidered comb or a replica of her bra. I noticed some people find working with human hair disgusting, but personally I like seeing hair used as an art medium, and Zaira Pulido’s work is right up my alley.

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It takes a great deal of skill and patience to create even the simplest matchstick model, but a detailed structure like the famous Taj Mahal seems almost impossible to recreate using the tiny sticks of wood. But Indian artist Shaikh Salimbhai challenged himself to create an almost identical model of the iconic structure using only wooden matchsticks, and although it took him a year and 19 days to finish it, he accomplished his goal. The wooden model was made from 75,000 matchsticks and will certainly become an inspiration for matchstick artists around the world.  The awe-inspiring matchstick Taj Mahal was unveiled on October 9, in the Indian city of Ahmedabad.

If you happen to be a fan of matchstick models, you might want to check out the awesome works of artists we featured on Oddity Central in the past, like Patrick Anton, Phillip Warren or Tofic Daher.

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