Portraits of Black Icons Made With Thousands Of Colorful Thumbtacks.

Andre Woolery's work depicts his journey as an artist and reflects his personal cultural experience as a young black man. His current work, comprised of thousands of colored thumbtacks (not unlike Eric Daigh's pushpin portraits) combined with paint, is primarily portraits of black icons by design.


above: Artist Andre Woolery with some of his thumbtack portraits

Initially inspired by Fruit Loops, because of their bright colors, Andre considered using the children's cereal as a medium. He then found a package of multicolored thumbtacks and began searching for them in all the colors he would need (apparently trying to find "orange" was like searching for the holy grail according to Andre).

Thanks to Mike Jacobs of Jam Paper, he ended up a wide array of colors (including orange) that made the following portraits of Jay-Z, Kanye West, Jimi Hendrix, President Obama and All About The Benjamins possible.




Challenged to find a way of keeping the tacks in place on the canvas, he bought ALL of the hardware store's expanding foam to spray the back of the canvas. The rest of the piece was tack-by-tack trial and error. Every 'pixel' was a lesson in spacing, light, and color to create the vision of Mr. Sean Carter (aka Jay-Z).


Jay-Z "The Tackover," April 2010
7,633 thumbtacks in total
Price for the original: $ 7,633.00, 20% of proceeds from original piece go to Harlem School of Arts.




Kanye West "Tacks on Tacks on Tacks," September 2011,
Over 8,000 thumbtacks
Price for the original: $ 12,000.00, 20% of proceeds from original piece go to Harlem School of Arts.




President Obama "Wet Paint," November 2011,
Over 10,000 thumbtacks.
Price for the original: $ 15,000.00





"It's All About the Benjamins," (featuring Benjamin Banneker) November 2011
23,850 thumbtacks in total
Price for the original: $ 25,000.00, 20% of proceeds from original piece go to Harlem Children's Zone.




Jimi Hendrix "Electric Feel"
Over 2,000 thumbtacks
Price for the original: $ 4,250.00, 20% of proceeds from original piece go to Harlem School of Arts.




Artist Andre Woolery:


All the artwork in this post (and more) is available for sale as originals or digital prints, some pieces whose partial proceeds go to the Harlem School of the Arts and the Harlem Children's Zone, making them that much more attractive.

Andre's thumbtack portraits only represent some of his artistic work. Check out his website to see more.

His etsy store

Shop for Andre's work here

Monkeys And Dogs And Bears. Oh My! Jill Greenberg's Photos

Jill Greenberg's amazing animal portraits are so expressive, I simply had to share a few of her enormous series with you. I say 'enormous' because she literally has over 80 portraits of monkeys to her credit, 40 portraits of bears (Ursine) and tons of dog portraits. I wish I could have shared them all with you, but it'd take about an hour to download. So, instead, I've chosen a few of my favorites from her prolific series of work.

As you will see below, she gets more personality from the faces of animals than most photographers do from people.

Monkeys:







Dogs:





.. and this beautiful one is Jill's own dog, Scooter:


Bears:









If you love these shots as much as I do, you'll be happy to know that she has publications of both the Monkeys (available on Amazon) and The Bears (Ursine) available directly from the Clampart gallery which sells several of her stunning prints from the Ursine series as well.




Jill and friend:


How does she do it? Well, here you can read an interview with the photographer about her animal portraits by Rosecrans Baldwin for The Morning News

Jill is a hugely successful photographer who uses digital manipulation, illustration and more in her craft. She has shot a lot for the entertainment industry, fashion, celebrity portraits and more. She has won many industry awards and continues to expand her portfolio. Visit her website here.


Above: just some of Jill's work

Greenberg was born in 1967 in Montreal, Canada. She graduated in 1989 from the Rhode Island School of Design and moved to New York City, where she was based until 2000. She now lives in Los Angeles with her family.