Although relatively new, book carving has become on of the most popular art forms of our time, with masterpieces of acclaimed artist like Brian Dettmer or Long Bin-Chen exhibited in galleries around the world. Kylie Stillman cuts new life into old, outdated books, by sculpting them as slabs of stone and turning them and giving them a second chance as veritable works of art.

Using a scalpel, Stillman cuts right into the stack of books, creating beautiful inverted reliefs of trees and the birds that once inhabited them. Her works remind us where the paper for the books came from, by turning the thousands of pages into versions of their original tree form.

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General Electric has teamed up with London’s National Gallery to create a living version Van Gogh’s A Wheatfield with Cypresses from 8,000 plants. The famous painting, originally created in 1889, was chose for its strong colors that could be effectively reproduced with living plants. 26 different varieties were used for this amazing eco-installation and the result is simply mind-blowing.

The living painting is currently displayed on the side of the National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, where it will grow throughout Summer and Fall, until October 2011. If you’re in London this Summer, this is one sight you don’t want to miss.

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You’d probably expect temple murals to depict religious themes and Buddha, but the Wat Rong Khun temple in Chiang Rai isn’t your ordinary holy place, as you can easily tell by the murals.

According to Wikipedia, in 1997, Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat volunteered to carry out the work for Wat Rong Khun’s ubosol (the temple’s assembly hall) at his own expense, but he changed the original plan so drastically that it  began drawing in both local and foreign tourists, eager to see the white wonder. Just like Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia cathedral, the unconventional Buddhist and Hindu temple is still under construction and some say it won’t be finished in the next 100 years.

Wat Rong Khun is entirely white, to symbolize Lord Buddha’s purity, and the mirrors used signify his wisdom, which “shines brightly all over the Earth and the Universe.” There is also an impressive bridge across a sea of human hands reaching out towards the sky, but perhaps the most interesting thing about this unique temple is its interior artwork. The imagery is painted in golden tones, depicting sacred animals and spaceships alike. That’s right, futuristic spaceships piloted by robots, ans superheroes like Superman in flight, that’s what’s painted inside Wat Rong Khun. Other scenes you might recognize show popular characters like the Predator, Neo from Matrix, Spiderman, Batman, and even creatures from the Avatar movie.

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16-year-old Maura Pozek, from Reed Springs, Missouri, created her own prom dress from 4,000 pull tabs and 400 yards of pink ribbon.

Looking at the beautiful gown, you wouldn’t guess it was created by a high-school junior, let alone that she did it using only ribbon and aluminum pull tabs. But it’s true, Maura actually spent 100 hours working on her unique prom dress, surrounded only by her laptop, cellphone and a Netflix subscription. I bet there was a lot of sweat and tears involved in all that intricate weaving, but the final result is truly mind-blowing, and she can rest assured no one else will be wearing the exact dress on prom night.

For last year’s prom, Maura made herself a dress from around 60 bags of Dorito chips. You can check out a couple of photos of it, at the bottom.

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Placed in the hands of a great artist, even a children’s toy like Etch-a-Sketch can become a powerful tool able to deliver mind-blowing masterpieces. Case in point – George Vlosich

George has been drawing since he was two years old, but it wasn’t until he got his hands on an old Etch-a-Sketch, in 1989, that he discovered his unique talent. He and his family were getting ready to go on a trip to Washington D.C., when they decided to drop by grandma’s house to say goodbye. His mother found her 1960’s old Etch-a-Sketch and gave it to George and his brother, so they wouldn’t get bored in the car. The ten year old artist etched a picture of the U.S. Capitol, and when his parents saw how detailed it came out, they pulled up at a nearby gas station and took a picture of his work, before it got erased.

In the beginning, Vlosich Etched a lot of simple things like Batman, Spiderman, and pretty much anything he took interest in, and before long the Etch-a-Sketch became the favorite way of expressing his artistic talents. The more he Etched, the better he got at drawing, and the more he drew, the better he Etched. At first, his works didn’t take himvery long to complete, but the more complicated his art became, the more time he had to dedicate to them. Now, every one of his Etch-a-Sketch artworks takes him between 70 to 80 hours to finish.

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Brian Dettmer, also known as “The Book Surgeon” uses knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve old dictionaries and encyclopedias into incredible works of art.

Born in 1974, in Chicago, Brian Dettmer studied art at Colombia College, where he focused mainly on painting. During his time working in a signage store, the artist started exploring the relationship between codes, text, language and art. He began producing paintings based on sign language, Braille and Morse Code, then moved on to layered works that involved pasting newspaper and book pages to a canvas, and it was just a matter of time before he would discover the talent he is now renowned for – expert book carving.

The Book Surgeon takes outdated books, dictionaries and encyclopedias that would otherwise end up at a landfill somewhere, and gives them new meaning and the chance at a second life, by carving them into intricate artworks. “Their intended role has decreased or deceased and they often exist simply as symbols of the ideas they represent rather than true conveyors of content. When an object’s intended function is fleeting, the necessity for a new approach to its form and content arises.” Dattmer says, explaining the philosophy behind his work.

Reference works are Brian’s favorite material, because of the rich illustrated content, but regardless of what he works with, he never inserts any new material or move the content of the book around just to make it more interesting. Using his trusty precision tools, he cuts out unwanted content stabilizing what’s left with layers of varnish. In the beginning, Brian Dettemer focused on carving one book at a time, but in recent years his art has become even more ambitious, as he began using sets of books to create the images he desires.

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Portland-based artist Jo Hamilton has a house full of balls of yarn,which she uses to create amazing crocheted portraits and landscapes.

Jo remembers she was only six when her grandmother taught her to to crochet, but it wasn’t until ten years later that she really dedicated herself to the old craft and started crocheting in a crafty way. She attended the Glasgow School of Art, where she experimented with both painting and drawing, but she felt that she needed an original medium to help her express her talent.

She was inspired to use crocheting as an art form after seeing an exhibition at the Portland Craft Museum that inspired artists to use techniques that are originally considered to be art. Happy that she had finally found a means of expression that she was comfortable with, Jo immediately started crocheting a cityscape made of six blocks, named “I Crochet Portland”. She now spends anywhere from forty five hours on a portrait, up to three years on one of her cityscapes, but the most important thing  is she never gets bored of crocheting.

The portraits Jo creates are incredibly detailed, and many people have speculated about the techniques and stitches she uses, but the artist claims her pieces come alive from the inside – it’s an organic process that implies no graphs, plans or charts. Of course, this means she doesn’t know the exact outcome of her effort, but Ms. Hamilton says she has learned to trust her way of working.

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Molly B. Right is a brilliant self-taught artist, from Charleston, South Carolina, who uses discarded bottle caps to create incredible portraits.

She began creating bottle cap portraits back in 1993, when she started pondering the phrase “Jesus Saves”. Saves what? – Molly asked – Does he just save souls, or if he had the time, would he also save things like string or rubber bands? Does he save bottle caps? And that’s when she took this question and turned it into a full size portrait of Jesus. “Now I’m doing bottle cap portraits of archetypal women that don’t have anything to do with Jesus saving anything. Now I’m the one who is saving bottle caps.” Molly says in the artist statement on her official site.

The process of creating bottle cap portraits begins with a painted portrait on a sheet of metal. Molly then glues the vintage bottle caps in an overlapping pattern, sort of like scales on a snake. She pays great attention to details, making sure there are no visible glue traces, and using several transparent washes of glaze to define her portraits even further.

The bottle caps Molly B. Right uses for her beautiful portraits are considered collectibles on their own, since all of them date from the 30’s to the 70’s.

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Denis Peterson is a New York based artist of Armenian descent known around the world for his incredible photorealist artworks.

A few weeks back, I posted some incredible artworks by Tom Martin, and I started looking up more hyper-realist artist. That’s how I first found out about Denis Peterson and his mind-blowing paintings. Widely regraded as the father of hyperrealism, Peterson has exhibited his creations in galleries across the world, from the US, to Italy or France.

Denis Peterson starts the creation process by taking a photo of his subject or scenery, magnifies it up 1 – 2000 times, to capture every small detail, and begins painting. As you can imagine, this kind of painting takes a while to complete – around a month, to be exact – but the artist’s efforts are well compensated, as he receives around $46,000 for each of his artworks.

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Children’s furnishing company Posh Tots is trying to fulfill every Star Wars fan’s fantasy of owning their very own Deep Space Fighter, by creating series of beds inspired by the iconic spacecraft.

That’s right Star Wars fanboys, after the incredibly awesome Millennium Falcon bed and Imperial Walker bunk bed, it’s time for another mind-blowing sleeping contraption. The Deep Space Fighter Bed looks like it’s been modeled after the Eta-2 interceptor that Anakin Skywalker piloted at the end of “Revenge of the Sith”, but the company allows its clients to make whatever custom modifications they desire, and they even throw in a free supporting wall mural that can depict anything from an army of elite fighters to a squadron of space fighters.

That sounds awesome, but that’s only because you don’t yet know the price. The Deep Space Fighter Bed starts at $18,000 dollars. Now I know it’s important to fulfill your child’s dreams, but for that much cash you could probably buy him a real ship.

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Made up of 100 recycled bicycle parts, Tree-cycle is one of the most original Christmas trees this year.

For the past two years, Sydney’s The Rocks area has featured a mind-blowing Christmas tree made of recycled materials. In 2008, the chosen medium was chairs, 2009 was the year of recycled bottles, and this year organizers went for bicycle parts. The seven-meter-tall tree was constructed using the bicycle parts provided by a group called CMA Recycling, and took a total of eight weeks to design and build.

The Tree-cycle Christmas installation can be admired until December 28, when i will be taken apart. Once dismantled, the bicycle parts will be recycled once again, by CMA Recycling.

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Every year, dozens of teams of architects and engineers compete in creating the most impressive can sculptures for the Canstruction exhibition.

This year, 25 teams did their vest to arrange around 100,000 cans of food into detailed sculptures that would ultimately win them the title of Canstruction champions. The intricate works of art are on display at the World Financial Center Garden, in New York City, until November 22, and visitors are encouraged to donate canned foods like tuna, beans or vegetables. Once the exhibition closes, all the cans are donated to the poor people of New York, by City Harvest.

Last year’s Canstruction winner was a piggy-bank sculpture made from 3.024 cans of salmon and 24 cans of tuna, but this year, judges have a tough decision to make. They have to pick between mosaics of Marylin Monroe and Super Mario, a can-made van and several other mind-blowing creations.

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i-City, one of the latest high-tech attractions of Malaysia, can best be described as an unconventional mix of Oriental style and the latest in lighting technology.

Located in the city of Shah Alam, i-City is a one-of-a-kind theme-park where all the main attractions are made of plastic and millions of bright LED lights. Similar to Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Ranch, during the day, i-City’s artificial forest of maple and pine trees really comes to life at night. Made out of plastic and fitted with colorful LEDs, they put on a light show unlike any other.

Inaugurated in early 2010, Shah Alam‘s i-City has already become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Malaysia. From rows upon rows of LED-made Chinese lanterns, to LED peacocks, flamingos and LED cherry blossoms, i-City offers a variety of unique sights that are sure to amaze anyone who visits here.

Though nothing compares to the look and smell of real trees, the colorful display of i-City’s magical forest is proof of the wonderful things man can create if he puts his mind to it.Now sit back and check out a set of mind-blowing photos taken in i-City, at night.

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Believe it or not, there are people out there who still live in caves and the weirdest part of it is, they actually enjoy it. Curt Sleeper and his entire family have been living inside the cave they’ve appropriately named Caveland, for the last five years. Their unusual story begins back in December 2003, when Curt was searching for a commercial property on eBay and he stumbled across a cave, in the Fetus/Crystal City area, Missouri. I guess it’s true what they say, you can find anything on eBay. Curt visited the property and fell in love with it on the spot. Where most others may see just an inhospitable environment, he saw a perfect home for his family, so he started working on it right away. The Sleepers used all their savings and inheritance money to build a comfortable house and the result is simply mind-blowing, as you can see in the pics below. There have been some rough bumps for the sleepers, but the toughest time was at the beginning of 2009, when, due to the economic crisis, they couldn’t refinance their mortgage. Since banks weren’t interested in appraising an odd cave house, Caveland had to be put on sale on eBay, for $300,000. Fortunately, the Sleepers managed to find some long-term financing and they are still living in their unusual home. via Caveland Read More »

Animation can have a weird effect on people. For example, this guy built a custom Wall-E pc case after watching the famous animation movie. This Russian fellow spent 18 days building this awesome pc case mod from scratch, after watching Wall-E. He just fely had to have Wall-E hold his computer components and because there was no such case on the market, he decided to build it himself. I have to say the result is nothing less than mind-blowing, and watching the entire building process on Casemods.ru, made me admire his work even more. I’m sure many of you would kill to have such a thing of beauty sitting on your desk, and, to be honest, I would too.