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

Nonpareil Pet Portrait. One Sweet Beagle Made of 221,184 Colored Sprinkles.

What began as a university fine arts project on Pointillism and Georges Seurat by student Joel Brochu, evolved into a remarkable artistic idea.



What looks like an image of a beagle getting a bath (above) is actually a 4’ by 1 ½’ high definition photograph covered in 221,184 nonpareil sprinkles, each placed painstakingly by hand.



At a distance of 16 feet, the sprinkles blur, tricking the human eye into believing that it is looking at a large photograph. Only when you closely examine the work do you realize that it has been created entirely with tiny spheres of rainbow nonpareils.







Meticulously placed by hand using jewelry tweezers, the sprinkles adhere to the board with the help of double sided tape and a thin layer of glue.




Using only 6 colors of sprinkles (Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Black, and White), a myriad of hues was created.




Joel used a customized computer program, in which a template was created from the original image which guided the placement of each sprinkle. Taking just under 8 months to complete, once finished, it was permanently preserved with a clear acrylic resin.

Sweet, huh?

A big shoutout to Betsy Wills and her wonderful blog, Artstormer, for bringing this unique piece to my attention. Most images courtesy of Joel Brochu

Dot to Dot to Divine. Incredible Portraits by Thomas Pravitte.

Melbourne, Australia based illustrator, graphic designer, artist and typographer Thomas Pravitte dabbles in many unusual forms of art. One of his most impressive and unique projects is that of labor-intensive line drawings connected by thousands of dots.



Take a look at his dot-to dot Mona Lisa, which consisted of 6,239 dots and took over 9 hours to complete.




He sells limited edition prints of his Mona Lisa:

A time lapse video of the creation of his dot-to-dot Mona Lisa:


Do It Yourself Dot to Dot Portrait Templates
But here's what I really find fascinating. He has created and sells dot-to-dot templates that combine two related images in one. The dot to dot templates are color-coded in sets of 100 making them easier to follow and YOU actually complete the drawings yourself, seeing them unfold in first one portrait, and then two, topped off with your own signature.

Let me explain visually. We'll start with his Michael Jackson dot-to-dot portrait which combines the young Michael Jackson and the mature Michael Jackson so you can of what I am speaking.

Here is what the image looks like prior to any connecting of the dots:

Beginning to connect the dots:

and voila! First you get young Michael Jackson...

and then as you continue to draw,

a more mature Michael Jackson appears:

The sequence of the drawings:

The final portrait:


Monkey Jesus:
As you start, a monkey appears. Continue to draw and another image surfaces:

The sequence of the drawing:

And finally, Monkey Jesus!


Yes, You Can - Obama:

And the final portrait:


Buy these limited edition Do It yourself Dot to Dot portraits.

Don't Panic features an interview with Thomas Pravitte that you should check out here.

See all of Thomas' interesting work here on Behance.