48-year-old Peter Longstaff is living proof that ambition and hope can overcome pretty much anything. Although he is armless, he manages to create artworks most of us couldn’t paint with three hands.

Ever since he can remember has had get around using only his feet. He had the misfortune of being born in a time when mothers were given thalidomide, a drug that alleviated morning sickness. But it also caused serious deformities in newborns and Peter was seriously affected by it.

Fortunately, this serious handicap didn’t affect the artist’s ambition and, starting from an early age, he figured out how to get things done with his feet. Now he says his right foot is like a normal person’s right hand. He can operate switches, open doors, all while gracefully balancing on just one leg.

Before embracing art, Peter Longstaff worked on a pig farm where he had to drive tractors, stack hay and handle the animals. He didn’t leave because work got too much for him, but because the market was getting to crowded. He retired and turned to art. He quickly enlisted in a movement called “Mouth and Foot Painting Artists”, as a student, and now his works are displayed all over the world.

Peter specializes in landscape paintings and also makes Christmas cards. His works are on display at the Picturecraft Gallery in Holt, Britain, from Friday till Christmas Eve.

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19-year-old Annie Drew has developed a new painting technique by applying paint with a piece of hardwood a little bigger than a matchstick.

The talented painter from Torquay, Devon thinks she might be the only artist in the world who uses this technique, which she calls the “pixellation technique“. It’s a really meticulous job, but it was the only way to “create a piece of wildlife art in mosaic” without turning to pointillism, which is completely accidental.

For example,to create the silverback gorilla painting bellow, Annie Drew applied 75,000 paint dots in 40 different colors. The whole thing took over 100 hours to complete.

Photos by APEX

via Telegraph.co.uk

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Ed Bing Lee, a talented artist from Philadelphia, has been perfecting his knotting skills for the past 25 years and is now able to create practically anything using basic macrame knots.

His “Delectables” series features some of the most delicious art pieces I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing. They may not be edible, but Ed Bing Lee’s knotted foods sure look good enough to eat. Using as many as 500 half-hitch knots per square inch, the artist managed to transform into a unique art form.

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Chris Gilmour is a world famous artist who creates representations of every-day objects from cardboard.

You may have seen cardboard art before, but the level of detail and complexity of Mr. Gilmour’s works is simply breathtaking. Although he also works with “dirty cardboard” (salvaged from packaging cardboard boxes with labels and common writings), his “clean cardboard” pieces are he most astonishing. People often have the impression his cardboard sculptures are actually real objects wrapped in paper.

Take a look at some of his most famous masterpieces and be sure to pick your jaw off the floor.

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Mike Stilkey is an artist from Alta Dena, California, who creates amazing works of art by stacking spine-painted books.

Mike had been drawing on book pages for a very long time, even publishing a book with 100 portraits painted on old book pages, called “100 Portraits”, when he realized it would be a good idea to paint on the book covers themselves.

His plan was to paint the books and then place them all against the wall, but he eventually got it in his mind that painting the book spines would be even better.He wasn’t very impressed with his first work, but when he presented it during the second Artist’s Annual group show, it got quite a lot of attention. Now his book paintings made Mike Stilkey one of the most respected artists of his generation

Photos by Dave Kinsey

via Fecal Face

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To celebrate President Barack Obama‘s visit to China, Huang Xin, a talented hairdresser, created a small sculpture of the US head of state from human hair.

This is not the first time Huang Xin captured the attention of the media with his hair-molding talent, he was the man behind the Tiananmen Square model made out of hair. The Chinese hairdresser spent seven days and seven nights making Hairy Obama and used four kilograms of human hair.

The Chinese found many ways to welcome President Obama on his 4-day-visit to China, but Huang Xin’s hair sculpture has to be one of the most original.

Photos via ImagineChina

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Entitled “You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too”, the chocolate couch was created by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich for an art-exhibit appropriately named “Let Them Eat Art”.

The chocolaty art-piece was covered in a thick layer of chocolate that not only made it look like a brown leather couch, but also feel like one. All the couch details, including buttons and stitching were made from chocolate.

That chocolate couch looks so real I bet there was someone at the gallery door telling visitors not to sit on it.

via mocoloco

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James Corbett takes used card parts and, using them like pieces in a puzzle, creates amazing steampunk sculptures.

Corbett showed artistic talent ever since he was a little boy. Colleagues at his Redcliff school would always tell him he’d grow up to be an artist. But, at 36 years old James was running a motor wrecking business. That’s when he started welding together a bunch of car parts and awakened the dormant talent inside. In just 18 months he closed his wrecking business and became a full-time artist.

James Corbet says he makes these original sculptures because he can and it would be a shame to waste his God-given talent. The Car Part Sculptor has exhibited his works in galleries all across the world.

via John Davies Gallery

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Teeth and Silver go together like horse and carriage. At least according silversmith Polly van der Glas, who created a strange collection of teeth encrusted silver jewelry.

Polly van der Glas, who won the Craft Victoria Fillipo Raphael Fresh! Award, in 2006, handcrafts a unique type of silver jewels, using collected human teeth and hair. The teeth are collected from all around Melbourne and sterilised, while the hair is sometimes imported from China and India.

Apparently the teeth are pretty hard to come by in Australia, so maybe miss van der Glas should get in touch with an Indian street dentist. I’m sure they could work out some sort of agreement.

via Ecouterre

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Karen Eland, a talented sketch artists and painter from Tulsa, uses only espresso to recreate some of the most famous paintings in history.

Karen’s talent and her love for coffee created a unique art-form that propelled her to celebrity status on the internet and TV shows. As an art student she used to practice her skills in coffee shops, seeping espressos. One day, as she was watching red-brown coffee pouring into her cup, she realized her favorite drink could be a part of her art.

That’s how it all started and over the years she became a master at blending layers upon layers of espresso and creating beautiful coffee-scented masterpieces. Some might find Karen Eland‘s way of blending a cup of coffee in her paintings offensive, but I think it makes for a perfect trademark.

Photos via Gizmodo

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The Matchstick Eiffel Tower built by Lebanese Tofic Daher was acknowledged by Guinness Book of Records as the largest in the world.

Tofic Daher, a disabled but talented craftsman who spends his days in a wheelchair managed to create the most impressive matchstick replica of France’s most popular landmark. Tofic worked over 2,316 hours on his matchstick masterpiece, over a period of 4 years.

The wooden Eiffel Tower has a base of 190×190, a height of 6.53 meters  and it’s made out of six million matchsticks. To make it even more impressive, Mr. Daher covered his work in 6,240 tiny lamps and 23 flasher lamps. he estimates he spent around $11,000 building the tower.

The world’s largest matchstick Eiffel Tower was unveiled on November 11,  at the City Mall, in Beirut.

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The technological masterpiece on display inside the ASUS headquarters in Peitou, Taiwan, is a tribute to Leonardo da Vinci’s work and represents the company’s pledge to support “any kind of crazy ideas”

The Techno Mona Lisa may not look as detailed as the classic painting, but there’s a good reason for that. As you probably know, ASUS is the world’s biggest motherboard manufacturer in the world and they decided to celebrate that by recreating a famous work of art using motherboard components and computer chips. I’m not sure exactly sure how many motherboards were used in the process, but it’s definitely a fine piece of geek art.

via Wired

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Say what you will about Russian mobsters, but you can’t say they lack artistic sense. Too bad it only shows on their tombstones.

These photos were taken in the cemetery of Dnepropetrovsk, in the Ukraine, a place much like the mafia-infested Yekaterinburg, in Mother Russia. Although the two cities are 2,000 km apart, mafia fashion is very much the same.

During the Russian Mafia Wars of the ’90s bosses started commissioning these lavish tombstones for them and their loyal subjects. A macabre masterpiece like this costs betwee $8,000 and $250,000, but I can bet that was never a problem.

via Trinixy.ru

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It certainly looks like a dragon biting on this dude’s shoulder, but he doesn’t seem at all alarmed, does he?

That’s probably because the thing on his back is just a backpack. But it’s by far the most awesome backpack I’ve ever seen! Called the Dragon Backpack, this masterpiece was designed by a young artist by the name of Bob Basset, from Kharkov, Ukraine. Be sure to check his website for more cool stuff.

I keep staring at these photos, but I can’t get over how cool this thing looks…

via bookofjoe

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Whenever he wants to experience the luxury of the old Pan Am first class cabins, all Anthony Toth has to do is spend a little time in his garage.

The 42-year-old Redondo Beach resident has spent the last five years turning his old garage into a perfect replica of a 1970s Pan Am World Airways 747 first class cabin. The airplane enthusiast spent the last 20 years of his life looking for original parts for his project and he reckons he invested around $50,000 in it, so far.

At the entrance of Anthony Toth’s Airplane Garage visitors can consult an old departures board and as soon as they enter the cabin, they are welcomed with original in-flight audio recordings from the ’60s and ’70s.

Everything in the Airplane garage has Pan Am written on it, even the on-board peanuts come in Pan Am packaging. Congratulations for keeping the spirit of Pan Am alive, but I like Tony Alleyne’s Star Trek Apartment a lot more.

via WSJ

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