Erin Smith is a young Australian artist who deconstructs entire passages of text and uses the thousands of individual letters to create beautiful detailed artworks.

The 29-year-old from Queensland moved to Melbourne a few years back, to study graphic design, and has recently moved back to her home state. It turned out this wasn’t the right career for her, because “I find it difficult to sit in a chair inside for any period of time…and I’m hopeless at deadlines so I wasn’t very good.” But it was during her studies that her fascination with typography began. “A few years ago at university we were learning about typography, how different weights of a font can help create emphasis etc. About a year later, I was looking at the intricacy of the engracing of a smith and wesson pistol (on the computer, not my own) [and] I thought about this image in relation to typography then started using the computer to creat the image. I did a series of these for a project”

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Roman Beybutyan, a young car enthusiast from the Grodno region of Belarus has built an impressive bison sculpture exclusively out of car parts.

Using shock absorbers, springs, steering rods, clutches, chains and various parts from soviet era cars like UAZ, Moskvich and Lada, Roman and his father managed to create a life-size metal bison, in three months. Roman and his father got all the parts they needed from their neighbors’ garages and from the local scrapyard, and welded them together using a photo for reference. Although the young boy, whose family arrived to Belarus from Armenia, has never seen a real bison, he did a fine job recreating one from metal parts.

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Chicago-based artist Katherine Kalnes creates delicious pancake portraits of celebrities the likes of Justin Bieber or Ryan Gosling.

There are some fans out there that would kill for the chance to sink their teeth into Justin Bieber, so to spare the popular pop star any possible injuries, 25-year-old Katherine Kalnes has created a delicious portrait of the singer from pancakes. The young food artist uses a special pancake batter that comes in a spray can, called Batter Blaster, frosting, chocolate chips, blueberries and raisins to create edible portraits of celebrities like Drive leading man Ryan Gosling, Kelly Ripa, Ellen DeGeneres or Stephen Colbert.

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New York-based artist Angelo Musco is taking the photography world by storm with his incredible mosaics made up of thousands of naked bodies.

Touching themes like birth, procreation and gestation, Angelo Musco creates complex structures of the natural world from an ant colony and beehive to a school of fish, using thousands of human bodies. “A swarm of fish captures a profusion of life, the safety of a symbolic nest, and a connection of one being to another. ‘It’s the strength derived from this collective force,” the artist says on his website. “The nests, as well, relate to the safe geography of birth and early life.” But Angelo Musco also draws inspiration for his unique mosaics from his traumatic early life experience.

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Artist Ted Harrison scattered over 5,000 poppies on the floor of St. Paul’s cathedral, in London, creating a giant artwork that highlight the involvement of children in armed conflict around the world.

Seen from ground level, Ted Harrison’s art installation looks like a bunch of randomly scattered poppies, but looked at from the Whispering Gallery, under the dome of St. Paul’s cathedral, the flowers form an image of three child soldiers, one from World War 2 and two from more modern conflicts. The installation is part of the St Paul’s Cathedral Arts Project, an ongoing programme which seeks to explore the encounter between art and faith, and was created to raise awareness to the issue of children being used as soldiers.

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Owning an Apple iPad is not such a big deal these days, but building one for scratch is definitely an impressive feat. That’s exactly what Chinese art student Wei Xinlong did, in the name of love.

Like many other college sweethearts in China, Wei Xinlong and Sun Shasha decided to settle for a long distance relationship in order to continue their studies or find better employment opportunities, after graduation. While some choose to end the relationship before parting ways, or reach that point after a certain period, Wei was determined to show his girlfriend how committed he is to their relationship and decided to prove it in a very special way. Although he attended art school, the young student had always been passionate about gadgets and loved building things with his own hands, so he set out to build Sun a touchscreen tablet PC for a daily video chat session. This way, when he leaves to Shenzen, they’ll be able to keep in touch easier.

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Peng Jiangya lost all of her fingers when she was only a child, after she fell into a flaming fire stove while her parents were away, but that didn’t stop her from finishing school, establishing a family and even creating beautiful art.

Growing up in a small village at the foot of the Fanjing Mountains on China’s Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Peng didn’t have the easiest childhood, but things got even worse after she burnt her hands severely after falling in a flaming fire stove. Her parents were too poor to afford reconstructive surgery, so the young girl had to learn to do everything without any fingers. At first she was unable to use chopsticks, and her parents had to teach her for a long time, but thanks to her strong will and a desire to do everything on her own and not rely on others, she managed to overcome those difficult times and is now capable of taking care of her own family.

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Radya Timofey, a 23-year-old Russian artist is taking the art world by storm with a series of original paintings made by throwing Molotov cocktails at his canvases.

They are often used to cause chaos, but young Radya Timofey is turning Molotov cocktails into art tools to create beautiful portraits of soldiers who fought in World War II. He uses a mix of home-made napalm and oil-based substances to sketch the outlines of the portraits and then throws a Molotov cocktail at the canvas, setting it ablaze. After the artwork has stopped burning, a charred figure is revealed. Although the actual “painting” takes place in abandoned outdoor areas, Radya Timofey says “of course it’s dangerous to use fire like this, but we are careful. We put them on the hospital as a testament to their bravery, in life they literally did have to put their faces in the fire to fight the Nazis.”

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Toronto-based artist Amy Shackleton creates amazingly detailed paintings without using brushes, or even her fingers. Instead she just relies on gravity to slowly guide the paint across the canvas.

It’s almost impossible to believe anyone can paint such beautiful artworks without a paintbrush, but actually doing it all by using the laws of gravity? That can’t be true, right? Actually it can, and if you’re not going to take my word for it, just check out the timelapse video at the bottom of the page, that features around 30 hours of work compressed into just two minutes. I watched it several times, and I still can’t get over how talented this girl is.

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Chim Pom, an art collective from japan, have found an ingenious way of dealing with Tokyo’s rat problem while attracting the attention of Pokemon fans; they caught some street rats and turned them into real-life taxidermied Pikachus.

But how does anyone come up with such a crazy idea? Well, it was all about the concept of “super rat”. The rats of Center-gai street, in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward got the nickname “super rats”because of their alleged immunity to human-made poison. They’re a real nuisance and aren’t afraid to come out of their hiding places even when people are walking by. Apparently there are thousands of giant rats lurking around the place, and this got the six members of Chim Pom about the famous anime character Pikachu, from the hit series Pokemon. they decided to catch some of these super street rats and turn them into real-life versions of the yellow, electrically-charged cartoon rat.

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I’ve always found quilling a fascinating art form, but after seeing Yulia Brodskaya’s mind-blowing “Babushka” I feel there’s nothing a talented artist can’t do with just a few colorful strips of paper.

I discovered quilling a year ago, and since then I have posted a number of impressive works of art created using only strips of colorful paper, but I haven’t seen anything as impressive as Babushka since Susan Myers’ recreation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It takes a lot of skill to shape simple pieces of paper into a detailed artwork, but Yulia Brodskaya has definitely taken quilling to new heights, using light and shadow to create an awe-inspiring masterpiece that carries a powerful emotional message. The Russian-born artist says Babushka is “the first piece in the series of works which I consider a declaration of love to the material and the technique. It is also an attempt to raise a profile of this paper craft, which has been previously regarded with some disdain, and to bring this type of artwork on a new level in terms of its ability to convey meaning and emotions.” She’s definitely up to a great start and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

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Last Sunday was the first official Steve Jobs day, but instead of wearing jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, Montreal-based artist Olivier Lefebvre decided to honor the Apple co-founder in a very unique way – a portrait made from real apples.

Ever since his death early this month, people all around the world have been celebrating Steve Jobs and his huge contribution to modern technology. I’ve seen quite a number of inspiring works of art created in his honor lately, but I found Olivier Lefebvre’s organic portrait the most impressive. The Canadian artist painstakingly arranged 3,750 apples to depict the face of Apple’s charismatic co-founder, in the town of Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec. And before anyone starts screaming things like “what a waste of good food”, you should know these were all deer apples, meaning they had fallen on the ground and started rotting. Lefebvre himself commented on Geeks are Sexy’s blog post saying: “I find it important to mention to all of you that all the Apples used where deer apples, I would never use human consumption grade food for art. So yeah i got my hands dirty. Made for a really nice apple aroma tho!”

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World-renown balloon artist Adam Lee has set a new world record for the largest balloon sculpture, with a giant spider made from almost 3,000 balloons. Did we mention he’s afraid of spiders?

Adam began his attempt to set a new world record on October 1, at Great Wolf Lodge, in Grand Mound, Washington, and after six days of weaving balloons into a giant version of one of the creatures he’s most afraid of, the talented artist reached his goal. “After working 10 hour days for six days straight, I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome,” Lee said about his experience. His scary inflatable creation measures 45 feet 2 inches wide and 22 feet 2 inches long and was created from almost 3,000 balloons. Too help guests realize just how big his spider really is, he explained that “”If I would have laid the inflated balloons end-to-end, they would have stretched for almost two-and-a-half miles!”

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Bian Lian, or Face Changing, as it’s known in the western world, in an old dramatic art associated with Chinese opera from the Sichuan Province. It is considered a part of China’s cultural heritage and is the only art form to be ranked as a level two national secret.

The skill and speed with which Chinese artists change their beautifully-painted masks has captured audiences’ imagination for centuries. Performers gracefully raise their hands, turn their heads and swing their arms, each time boasting a new mask. The secret of how they manage to change from three to twenty masks during a single performance without anyone realizing the trick has fascinated people since it started being practiced, during the Qing dynasty, around 300 years ago. It is said Bian Lian actually started out as a survival technique. People painted all kinds of designs on their faces to frighten wild animals, but as time went by it became a dramatic art performed on stage. Another legend tells of a people’s hero, a Chinese version of Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, who whenever cornered by guards would change his appearance to confuse them and escape.

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Kate Askegaard of Dixon, Illinois has spent 1,500 hours of her life recreating a classic masterpiece using only dots the size of a pin tip, for the annual ArtPrize Contest. This what is called a labor of love.

Looking at Kate’s masterpiece from afar, you’d think it’s just another well-done recreation of Michelangelo’s “Pieta”, but after a close inspection you realize it’s actually made of millions of tiny dots. Entitled “True Love” this unique piece was created for the 2011 ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It started out with Askegaard’s wish to prove to herself that she was a good artist, and she got it into her head that if she could capture what Michelangelo did with his Pieta, and the public would respond, than she could call herself a good artist. Kate referenced a 12in x 12in photo of the classic artwork, which she gridded out into over 10,000 squares. She used 9 sheets of paper, each 19in x 24in, glued them on a 5ft x 5ft canvas and finally painted black around the image.

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