Toasted Celebrity Portraits by Henry Hargreaves

New York artist Henry Hargreaves makes portraits of modern icons using dozens of pieces of toast. You have to admit, burnt toast never looked this good.

With his series of toast portraits entitled “Toasted”, Henry Hargreaves joins the ranks of established artists who chose toast as their art medium, the likes of Maurice “Toastman” Bennett, Laura Hadland or Adam Sheldon. Using dozens of pieces of toast, some barely toasted, other burned to a crisp, Hargreaves managed to create a series of mosaic portraits that includes The Beatles, Che Guevarra, Jim Morrison and Marylin Monroe. I gotta say they all look good good enough to eat.

Read More »

Malaysians Sleep in Coffins for Good Luck

Most people would prefer to stay out of a coffin for as long as possible, but for devotees at the Looi Im Si temple, in Penang, Malaysia, sleeping in a coffin is the best thing that could happen to them.

The Taoist temple located in Jelutong worships deities linked to the afterlife, like Xiao Xian Bo, one of the two guards responsible for bringing the dead to the other side. Chu Soon Lock, the temple’s secretary, claims his grandmother founded the temple after receiving instructions in a dream, from hell deity Di Fu Bao Zhang. As the years went by the temple started worshiping various other deities like Ji Gong, Si Da Jin Gang and Mile Buddha. The weirdest part of the story of Looi Im Si temple started in 2007, when the spirit of Xiao Xian Bo arrived at the holy place and began addressing his devotees through the body of Chu Soon Lock’s brother.

Chu Soon Chye says he doesn’t know a word of Teochew, yet he speaks the dialect fluently each time he is possessed by Xiao Xian Bo. Back in 2008, when he was in a trance, Soon Chye instructed temple devotees to place five coffins within the temple, and only allow people with serious problems caused by bad luck to sleep in them. Only one of the five coffins is used, because the other four are apparently too small to fit into.

Read More »

Man Has Sinking Titanic Tattooed on His Back

Titanic enthusiast Steve Hide, from Southampton, England, had his entire back tattooed with the faithful moment the iconic ship sank into the Atlantic, in April of 1912.

45-year-old Steve has always been interested in the history of the Titanic, and since he’s also a big fan of tattoos, he figured a full-back ink-job of the Titanic sinking would be a great way of remembering it. Work on the stunning piece began five years ago, in a tattoo parlor in Eastbourne, and since then Steve spent around 40 hours in various tattoo shops getting his back inked. When he first got the idea, in 2006, he wanted to have it done for the 100th anniversary, and used books and pictures of the Titanic sinking in order to have a realistic replica tattooed on his back.

Read More »

Artist Turns Dull Buildings into Fairytale Settings

Ukrainian artist Daria Marchenko and her team were commissioned by a night-time delivery company to turn their dull-delivery points into something truly special, and the results are just fantastic.

Night Express, a courier service operating in the Ukraine, decided to remind their clients about their favorite fairytales, cartoons and childhood dreams, by turning delivery points in various Ukrainian cities into mind-blowing optical illusions. The fact that Night Express operates at night, when people dream, was the inspiration behind this amazing project carried out by Daria Marchenko and her team of gifted artists.

Read More »

Chinese Couple Convert Cargo Truck into Mobile Home

Unable to buy a real house, a young couple in Kunming, China, have opted to convert a small cargo truck into a comfy mobile home.

It’s hard to imagine someone living comfortably in the back of a truck, but the high housing prices in China have forced young people to be resourceful and find all kinds of original alternatives. Last year, a young Chinese student from Beijing built himself a sustainable egg-house from bamboo and insulating materials, and now a young couple have turned a cargo truck into an 8.5-square-meter living space.

It’s not the spaciest home ever built, but it features just about everything anyone needs to live a decent life, including a small kitchen with a sink and electric stove, bunk-beds, refrigerator, flat screen TV and even a computer. The only thing that isn’t shown in the photos is also one of the most important – the toilet, but, even if they haven’t improvised one on their truck, I’m sure they have some way of dealing with personal hygiene.

Read More »

Displaying Cars on Rocks Is a Favorite Pastime in Saudi Arabia

The young men of Saudi Arabia’s Abha region have a rather peculiar pastime: they like to build rock structures on which they display their cars.

Abha, a city in south-western Saudi Arabia has a moderate climate and features green landscape which make it a popular getaway for tourists from all over the country and other neighboring lands. Over 1.5 million people come to spend their weekends and vacations here, and that number is about to grow thanks to a new and intriguing attractions – the unique car displays in the countryside around Abha.

Read More »

Artist Writes Detailed Portraits of Dogs

Florida-based artist Stephen Kline has created a new artistic technique that allows him to draw detailed portraits of dogs, using only text. For example he can draw the portrait of a poodle just by writing the word ‘poodle’ a few hundred times. You’d think writing the same  word so many times would eventually get boring even for the most patient artist, but Stephen has so far created hundreds of these brilliant litographs of every dog breed you can think of.

Stephen Kline introduced his Lines of Language technique in 1999, and since then he’s gained thousands of art-collecting fans from 20 different countries and every state in the US. His litographs have so far generated tens of thousands of dollars for dog rescue centers around the world.

Read More »