One of the world’s best known mosaic artists, Saimir Strati, from Albania, has created some of the most original and impressive mosaics in history. For his creations he has been rewarded with four Guinness Records and international fame. From nails to paintbrushes, Strati can almost any kind of material to create amazing mosaic masterpieces. Let’s have a look at his four most memorable achievements:

The photos used in this post are copyright of Saimir Strati and mosaicart-sast.

Nail Leonardo Da Vinci mosaic

In 2006, Saimir Strati would shock the art world with his giant mosaic of Leonardo Da Vinci, made entirely from nails. It was 6 1/2 x 13 feet and held over 800 lbs of nails. Each nail acted as a pixel, rising and falling to depict every detail of Da Vinci’s face.

It took 500,000 nails and 24 days to complete, but this nail mosaic won Saimir Strati his first Guinness Record, for the World’s Biggest Nail Mosaic.

Photos via ArtisticThings

Toothpick Mosaic (Reinless Spirit)

In 2007, Strati followed up with the world’s biggest toothpick mosaic, made out of 1.5 million toothpicks. For the work he named Reinless Spirit, the Albanian artist used different varieties of wood, and different toothpick lengths, to give his artwork depth.

Saimir Strati worked on his toothpick mosaic 13 hours a day, for 40 days, and when he was finished, the artwork measured two by four meters in size.

Cork mosaic

The following year, Strati did it again, this time using cork as material for his art. he used 229,764 corks of various shapes and sizes to create “Romeo with a crown of grapes playing the guitar while dancing with the sea and the sun”, a homage to life around the Mediterranean.

Using the same technique people used to create mosaics 2,000 years ago, Saimir Strati worked 14 hours a day, for 28 days. The masterpiece was 12.94 m by 7.1 m in size.

Paint brush Michael Jackson mosaic

In October of 2009, Saimir Strati paid homage to Michael Jackson, by creating a giant mosaic of the King of Pop himself, using paint only paint brushes. The installation was presented on the side of a truck, in Durres, 40 km from Albania’s capital city, Tirana.

Working 16 hours a day, for 28 days, Strati used 230,000 different color paint brushes to create the masterpiece that earned him his fourth Guinness Record, for the World’s Biggest Paint Brush Mosaic.