The American Flag Made of Toy Soldiers, Sneakers, Legos, Eyeglasses & More.

above: detail from Dave Cole's American flag made of melted toy soldiers and paint.

In honor of this year's Fourth of July, I'm sharing with you some artistic interpretations of the United States National Flag. However, I can't write a post on modern art and American flags without mentioning Jasper Johns, the artist whose modern paintings of American Flags are known throughout the world, the most famous of which is shown below:

Art to Rave About. Self-Portrait Made Up Of Ecstacy Pills By Artist Scott Blake.

Artist Scott Blake, a Savannah College of Art and Design graduate, specializes in unique forms of digital mosaic and bar code art. A few years back, he created this self-portrait comprised of Ravers favorite drug, MDMA or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, more commonly known as Ecstacy or simply "e".






Scott collected all of the XTC pill images from Dancesafe.org, a harm reduction organization promoting safety within the rave community.

Pixel Dimensions - 5184 x 6480
File Size - 61.3 Megabytes
Color Mode - RGB Color
File Format - Photoshop Flattened
Individual Pill Pixel Dimensions - 144 x 144
Pills Generated - 256

See more of his work here.

Red Vines, Candy & Junk Become Celebrity Portraits In The Hands Of Jason Mecier.

above: Kim Kardashian made of Red Vines & Black Licorice twists

Los Angeles born, and now San Francisco-based, mosaic artist Jason Mecier creates portraits of famous personalities with assemblages crafted of candy, food, yarn, dried beans and just plain junk.

In his licorice mosaics, He artfully twists red and black licorice to create uncanny likenesses of some of today's most popular entertainers and images from popular culture.


above: detail of Kim Kardashian made of Red Vines and Black Licorice

In his "junk" portraits, the objects he uses to craft the images include things relevant to the celebrity or personality of his subject, such as the Campbell's soup cans and banana used to compose a portrait of artist Andy Warhol:



Red vines and black licorice:

Mo' Nique:

Michael C. Hall as Dexter:

Elizabeth Berkely in Showgirls:

Taylor Lautner:

Robert Englund as Freddy Kruger from Nightmare on Elm Street:



Other Candy
Taylor Swift made with Good n' Plenty Candies:


Pam Anderson made of various hard candy and candy bars:

details:

Christina Aguilera made of candy:

The Olsen Twins made of candy:

The Spice Girls made of candy:


Some of his impressive "junk" portraits.

Mary Louise Parker (star of HBO's Weeds):

Conan O'Brien:

Tina Fey:

Chelsea Handler:

Donald Trump and detail:

Frida Kahlo and detail:

Singer Pink:

Kathy Najimy:

RuPaul:

President Obama:


And, not on his site, is his portrait of Snoop Dogg made entirely of, you guessed it... weed:



To see more, visit Jason's website.

Artist Eric Daigh Sticks It To Us With His Pushpin Portraits

Born in California and now residing in Northern Michigan, 33 year old husband, father and artist Eric Daigh creates portraits by putting ordinary pushpins in posterboard. Daigh uses blue, red, white, yellow and black push pins (he sprays green pushpins black since there are no black pushpins) to create his masterpieces. Each portrait requires about 11,000 pushpins which Daigh applies by one at a time.


above: Eric and his wife Meghan, whose portrait he's created with pushpins four times.

His work took third place (and $50,000) in the Grand Rapids, Michigan 2009 ArtPrize Exhibition, has been featured on CBS this morning, was in the 2009 Communication Arts Illustration Annual and he holds the Guinness World Record for the largest pushpin mural.

Chloe and Casey:

Austin II and Cory:

Harper:

Jaia and Kimberly:

Neyla:


Potraits of Meghan, the artists' wife


Now, close-ups of each of the above portraits of Meghan.

Meghan I:

Meghan II:

Meghan III:

Meghan IV:

Self Portrait I and Self-portrait II:


The work as it appeared at Art Prize, 2009:




above: the artist in front of his work (photo by T.J. Hamilton)

A special thanks to the following folks on flickr for additional images:
Rich Evenhouse
Nancy Rae
Numstead
Pairadocs

Other artwork made with unusual mediums:

Frederico Uribe's shoelace, pencil and kicks art


The assemblage work of Bernard Pras


Portraits made of diamonds, sapphires and other gemstones:


The crayon and paper art of Christian Faur: