Many artists use pencils to create their works of art, but in the case of  Dalton Ghetti, his pencils actually become artworks.

49-year-old Dalton Ghetti loved to carve things as long as he can remember. As a child, he used to carve his friends’ names into the sides of pencils and offer them as presents. Later, he took sculpting more seriously and began making large wooden sculptures, until he decided to challenge himself and make really tiny artworks. He experimented with many mediums, such as chalk, until the day he discovered pencil graphite.

Using a razor blade, a sculpting knife and a sewing knife, Dalton creates the most amazing sculptures from the tip of regular graphite pencils. And believe it or not, he creates these detailed masterpieces without the use of a magnifying glass.

Dalton Ghetti has been creating pencil tip miniatures for the last 25 years. Usually, most of his creations take several months to complete, but his most intricate piece, a pencil with interlinking chains was took two and a half years. As you can imagine, some of the fragile pencil tips do break, sometimes after months of work, and in the beginning this was a real problem. He would get very angry, but in time, he decided to approach every one of his work with the following philosophy: “well this will break eventually but let’s see how far I get.” He still breaks them, but not as often.

Some people might think it strange, but the artist keeps every one of his broken pencil tip sculptures. He placed over 100 of them on pencil tips and placed them on styrofoam for display. Although they are dead now, he once gave life into them.

Dalton current project has been ongoing for a long time, but upon completion it will be his greatest yet. Back in 2002 he began carving a pencil tip heart a day, he and doesn’t plan on stopping until he has carved 3,000 tears for each of the people who died in the 9/11 terrorist attack of the World Trade Center. He estimates the entire project will take around 10 years.

Dalton Ghetti has been carving pencil tips for the last 25 years, but hasn’t sold any of his artworks, He just gives them to friends, as gifts.

Photos are copyright of Dalton Ghetti via Telegraph.co.uk