Awesome Mosaics

Artist M’Brick makes portraits from LEGO bricks. But rather than keeping things simple with 1×1 pixels, he uses a seemingly random assortment of parts to create depth and textures. The originals are hard to come by, but limited-edition prints are for sale at M’Brick’s Art Shop. His Frida Kahlo and Bruce Springsteen portraits are extraordinary.

Kids today probably don’t even know what a CD or DVD is, but for a while, these were the best way to deliver music, movies, and games. Maker Nick Zammeti took advantage of the mirrored, prismatic discs, attaching hundreds of the shiny shards to a resin guitar body. It took a couple of tries, but the finished design came out great.

TwistPixel Studios creates fun and vibrant wall art using mini Rubik’s Cubes as his media. Each work is sold in kit form, and includes all of the supplies you need to create your pixelated portraits. Designs include Space Invaders, Pikachu, Tony Stark, Pac-Man, and numerous others, all made using a limited 6-color pallette.

LEGO takes a page from the builder community by releasing a series of pixelated portraits you can assemble yourself. The initial series will include images from Andy Warhol, Star Wars, Marvel, and The Beatles. Each set offers multiple build options for different faces. Available 9.1.20.

New Jersey artist Monique Sarfity creates one-of-a-kind mosaics using thousands of recycled computer keycaps. In order to create the images, she uses a mix of whole and partially sliced-up black, white, and grey keys.

Like larger mosaics, micromosaics are images made up of numerous small colored pieces. But these are made using tweezers to lay in tiny pieces of glass. They look like paintings from any distance. The Victoria and Albert Museum shares footage of the painstaking process.

Beyond the Brick shows off the most impressive LEGO mosaic we’ve ever seen – an enormous 15 foot-tall, 300,000 brick version of the oft reinterpreted Adoration of the Magi by artist Dirk Denoyelle. Though the wise men are all a bit more modern than the classical paintings.

82-year-old Montana artist Gary Tallman gathers firewood each spring and stacks it into intricate mosaics based on size, shape and color. He seems to especially love owls. Head to Bored Panda to check out more work from other wood pile artists.

Artist Ed Chapman creates pop culture mosaic portraits images using broken pieces of tile, stone, torn paper, and in the case of David Bowie – shattered vinyl records. His Hendrix made from guitar picks might just be his masterpiece.