Painter Chris Trueman, from Claremont, California, has created a unique painting by using 200,000 dead ants instead of paint.

The painting Chris calls “Self Portrait With a Gun” actually features his younger brother, dressed as a cowboy, holding his dad’s rifle. From afar this unusual artwork looks more like an old yellowed photo, but as you approach it, you realize it’s actually something completely different – a painting made of ants.

To the artist, this bizarre ant painting represents how humans learn about things abstractly, only to have their impressions changed as they get closer to them. But actually completing his masterpiece wasn’t the simplest task, mostly because he hated killing the creatures he perceives to be ” right on the line of what I consider intelligent life.” When he first began the project, he decided to catch the ants himself, but the ants in San Francisco, where he was living at the time, were too small. So he decided to order them online, from a guy who was breeding and selling them as food for lizards.

First he ordered just 1,000 ants, because he didn’t know how many he would need for the right density, but then he started ordering 40,000. They came in peanut-butter jars, and seeing them moving around in there, it was hard for Chris to make a decision. He couldn’t release them, because they weren’t native to that area, and they could start biting people. So he decided to kill the ants himself. It wasn’t easy, and he even took a 1-year-break, but decided to complete his ant masterpiece,  because he didn’t want the first batch to have died in vain.

Some of the ants dried up and were torn to pieces, so Chris Trueman used them in the large parts of the painting, where details weren’t important, saving the full-sized ants for the detailed parts. he would handle them with tweezers, placing them on the Plexiglass canvas and coat them in a painting resin called galkyd.

Chris Trueman‘s ant painting is on display, at an art gallery in San Diego, and is priced at $35,000.

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I remember reading an article on Environmental Graffiti, a few months ago, about the thorniest trees on Earth. The photos were really impressive, considering I had no idea such trees even existed, but I felt there wasn’t really enough information about these amazing species of trees. So I took it upon myself to do some research and came up with seven bad-ass trees you couldn’t even hope to climb without some serious protective gear.

Silk Floss Tree (Ceiba Speciosa)

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Terry Prouty has been fascinated with wasps, ever since he was a little boy, growing up in Louisiana. Now he’s all grown up and is the owner of possibly the most impressive wasp nest collection in the world.

Mister Prouty now lives in Oklahoma, but his passion for wasps is just as strong as when he was just a boy. The self-entitled ‘Hornetboy’ is an advocate of wasps, and he says people are not as educated on wasps as they should be. Many of them just watch horror movies that give wasps a bad name, and they’re too scared to actually learn something about them.

The general opinion about wasps hasn’t stopped Terry Prouty from constantly studying these insects for the last 25 years, and putting together an impressive collection of nests from all around the world. He started his latest collection in 2000, and has since acquired impressive wasp nests which he proudly displays in his home. Most of them were bought online, for prices ranging from $10 to $200.

Check out Hornetboy’s entire collection on his Flickr stream.

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Deep in the forest of Parikkala, in the easternmost part of Finland, lies one of the craziest tourist attractions on the face of the planet – the sculpture park of Veijo Rönkkönen.

Regarded by most as the most important ensemble of contemporary folk art in Finland, the sculpture park of Veijo Rönkkönen is a lot to take in, the first time you visit. Finding yourself surrounded by hundreds of creepy statues, grinning at you with their real human teeth, is enough to spook you into turning back as soon as you set foot in the park.

Veijo Rönkkönen, a former paper mill worker, completed his first sculpture in 1961, and now his yard, and the path leading to it, are filled with over 450 statues, 200 of which are self portraits of the artist in Yoga positions he has mastered so far. The statues have loudspeakers hidden inside them, and the sound effects add to the eeriness of this place.

Although he has had the chance to exhibit and even sell his artworks, in auctions, Veijo Rönkkönen has never agreed to showcase his art. Every time he was asked to showcase his work, the near-hermit always replied he needed to discuss it with the statues first. Sadly, they never agreed to travel.

The sculpture park of Veijo Rönkkönen is free to visit, if you dare, but the artist insists every visitor sign his logbook, before they leave. Read More »

A fan of the Candyland board game, ever since she was 3 three years old, Facebook user Kan-Dee Corner worked meticulously to transform her garden into a real life version of the famous game board.

As a child, Kan-Dee Corner always dreamed about her very own magical Candyland, and now that she’s all grown up, she decided she can make her own magic, and began building a real life version of the board game, in her garden. She started in summer of last year, took a break for the winter, and resumed the building process this spring.

Using parts of three versions of the Candyland game boards, and adding her own themes, Kan-Dee Corner created 17 micro gardens, each with its own theme, color and smell. She did most of the work herself, but her neighbors were very supportive as wel, and one of them even created that nice little shed.

Check out photos of the building process below:

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Using his old Lada Samara Diva as an art medium, artist Nikola Nikolov has built a 2 meter-tall statue, named The Transformer.

The Transformer was created to symbolize the relationship between man and machine. The artist cut up his old Lada Samara Diva into pieces, which he later sculpted and welded together in the shape of a robot. The sculpture’s unusual position denotes the robot is at the moment between knowing what he was and what he has become.

The Transformer sculpture is 2 meters high, 80 meters wide and weight 90 kg.

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Growing up on a farm, with 350 alligators has made Samantha Young take up alligator wrestling at a very young age.

The 9-year-old was also inspired by her parents, both professional alligator wrestlers. Samantha began wrestling alligators when she was just 6 years old, but says her father beat her to it, starting the dangerous practice at age 5, after he was bit by one. She admits being scared, at first, but her dad was always there watching over her, ready to intervene if things got out of hand.

Now, this girly version of Crocodile Dundee teaches grown men how to tackle eight-foot alligators, at the Colorado Gators Reptile Park, and has even trained US marines, in this deadly art. She says all you have to do is position yourself on the alligator’s back, in such a way that you have its mouth and neck under your control, then pull its head back and voila, you have yourself a tamed alligator.

Erwin and Lynn Young started their alligator farm, in 1987, when they brought in 100 one-year-old reptiles. As the news spread, people began poking around the gators’ pools, and to avoid any accidents, the Young family began charging people to see the alligators. Nowadays, 25 of the original 100 are still around, and visitors pay $104 for the chance to see Samantha tackle them, and even try it themselves.

via Zimbio

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This sounds like something you’d normally see in a movie like Zombieland, but the Best Made Co Axe Sling is a real-life fashion accessory.

So this company, Best Made, sells axes, and I’m not talking about the normal kind, you find at the local department store. These babies are stylish accessories better suited for an axe murderer or a zombie hunter, than for a lumberjack. They have a beautiful painted handle, a nice leather cap and come in a cool wooden crate.

And now they’ve even launched a new accessory for their axes, the Best Made Axe Sling makes it easy to carry your trusted axe around anywhere, just in case you run into a zombie, or if you just feel like splitting someone’s skull open. Come on, you know you’ve thought about it.

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If you’re a flower enthusiast, and you happen to be in Rome, in the second week of June, you just have to visit the small town of Genzano, for its world famous Infiorata.

The Genzano Infiorata is a flower festival that can be traced back to 1778. Every year, local artists cover an entire street (Via Belardi) with intricate flower carpets, inspired by famous artworks, religious paintings or geometrical shapes. The flower carpets are made by talented local artists who have to stick to a previously agreed upon theme, like ‘The Colors of Michelangelo’ or ‘The Designs of Bernini’.

The Infiorata of Genzano begins with the harvesting of millions of flowers, 2-3 days before the event. They are stored fresh, in caves around Genzano, while the artists draw their masterpieces on the pavement of Via Belardi, for the Saturday parade.

Preceded by a ‘mini Infiorata’, where children from local schools create the flower carpets, the Infiorata ends on the Monday of the third week of June, when children are allowed to destroy the colorful artworks, by playing on them.

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51-year-old Alex Queral carves phone-books to create amazing portraits of celebrities such as Clint Eastwood or Kirk Douglas.

‘In carving and painting a head from a phone-book directory, I’m celebrating the individual lost in the anonymous list of thousands of names that describe the size of the community.’ That’s how Alex Queral explains his art, adding that he also enjoys creating an ‘object of longevity’ out of something that otherwise gets discarded every year.

The Philadelphia based artist got the idea of using phone-books as an art medium, 14 years ago, while he was looking for some wood to carve. He spotted a pile of discarded phone-books on the pavement, and the idea just hit him. Since people mostly use the internet, to look for things these days, most phone books just get dumped somewhere, so he sees his art as a way of recycling them.

Alex Queral carves up to two phone-book sculptures a month, then paints them with transparent acrylic paint, to make them durable and give them a glossy finish. So far, Queral has immortalized iconic figures like the Dalai Lama, Barrack Obama, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, and many others.

The artist admits it’s pretty difficult to deal with a careless cut that ruins everything, right when he’s about to finish a piece. But all he can do is start his carving all over again.

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“Abandoned Housing Estate Number N” is a unique miniature city, made entirely from corrugated cardboard.

So far I’ve seen a city made of toothpicks, another one made of staples, but this is the first cardboard city, for me. Created by a Japanese artist whose name eludes me, Housing Estate Number N is an ever-growing project that started back in 2001. The paradox of this art installation is that although it’s mostly abandoned, it keeps growing and evolving, with each passing day.

Some of the rooms in the estate are lit and completely furnished, while others are dark and empty. There are even some eerie characters that look like haunting spirits. Though pretty bizarre, Housing Estate N is an inspiring project that will keep growing as long as its creator desires it.

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Back in 2005, when Stargate was the coolest sci-fi series around, sg1archive user ‘mango’ teamed up with his father to build a sweet replica of the stargate.

The project began in AUTOCAD, where the first blueprints were drawn. Since they didn’t have access to a plotter, plans had to be printed on A4 paper and stuck together, in a circle. The small details of the gate had to be drawn up from scratch, using photos and video footage. The skeleton of the gate is made up of 18 X-shaped pieces, and the spinning part is made from small planks.

The intricate stargate symbols had to be painstakingly carved, from wood, and chevrons first had to be carved from Styrofoam. The back of the stargate, though painted in gray, is totally fake, but the front looks realistic enough, with chevrons locking and everything. Thanks to an inner track, it even spins. Mango wasn’t too satisfied with the paint-job, but all in all this is a geeky masterpiece, just like the Stargate home-cinema.

Be sure to check the video Mango made, at the bottom of the post.

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The Qeswachaka hanging bridge, of Cuzco, Peru, is handwoven every year, from a local grass called Qoya.

Located approximately 100 km from Cuzco, Qeswachaka bridge was once part of a network of bridges, built in the time of the Inca empire, but is now the only one of its kind, in the world. Spanning 120 feet over the Apurimac river, at around 13,000 feet above water, Qeswachaka (also spelled Q’eswachaka or Keswachaka) is built using the ancient Qhapaq nan technique, used by the Inca people.

Qhapaq nan bridges were built from grass, and were wide enough for only one person to pass, at a time. In ancient times these bridges were constantly under surveillance and everyone crossing them was monitored. When Pizzaro began his march for Cuzco, Qeswachaka was destroyed, to slow his advance, but was reconstructed, many years later.

Made from a local herb, known as Qoya, the fibers of Qeswachaka bridge deteriorate rapidly, and local communities have to reconstruct the bridge every year. Around 1,000 men and women, from various Andean communities gather at Qeswachaka bridge, every second week of June, for the rebuilding ceremony. Long blade of Qoya grass are woven into six long cables, which are bound and secured by eucalyptus trunks, buried at each end of the bridge.

It’s not that building a more modern bridge would be impossible, but this is a way for the Andean people to celebrate and honor their Inca ancestors, and keep their centuries old traditions alive.

Photos by REUTERS via Daylife

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Using tens of thousands of matchsticks, David Mach creates detailed models of animals, symbols or historical figures.

53-year-old David Mach, from Scotland, has a passion for art and matchsticks, so he decided to combine them and create unique masterpieces. Using a clay mold he creates a plastic or fiberglass model of whatever he wants to create, and then begins the process of sticking matchsticks on it, one at a time. Most of his creations are made with tens of thousands of colored-tip matchsticks, imported from Japan, and take months to complete.

Along with his wife, who helps him run his art studio, David March has so far created over 350 matchstick artworks. They sell for anywhere between $30,000 and $52,000, but they don’t always make it to the auction, as the duo sometimes set them aflame at art exhibitions. With that many matchsticks involved, you can imagine the effect is truly impressive, though short.

Photos via Denoirmont

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Located on the barren slopes of Chausudake Volcano, in Japan’s Tochigi Prefecture, hundreds of small Jizo statues make up the eeriest spirit army I’ve ever seen.

One of the most beloved divinities in Japan, Jizo is seen as a savior working to ease the suffering of those serving time in hell, and answers the prayers for health, and success of the living. He is a friend to all, and Jizo statues are usually placed at intersections of roads, to help travelers pick the right way to go. He is extremely important to pregnant women and children, and statues are often adorned with tiny children’s clothes or bibs. Parents whose children have died place toys and offerings beside the statues, asking for protection of their child’s soul.

The Jizo statues of Chausudake Volcano offer a sight unique in Japan, and all over the world. Jizo representations can be found in many places around the Land of the Rising Sun, but the dark volcanic rocks, from which the statues have been carved, and the barren surroundings create an eerie atmosphere that’s hard to forget.

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