Awesome Painting

Most portraits are painted on canvas or paper. This skilled artist paints on the inside of glass bottles. The process doesn’t just require a steady hand and precision but the ability to think about images in reverse. While the results are impressive, this isn’t a unique talent – the practice of painting inside small snuff bottles dates back to the 17th century in China.

Artist Alain Biet created this mindblowing short film, which starts out with an artist painting an image of a pencil. As soon as he’s done with that one, more everyday objects start appearing and accumulating until the frame is completely filled. We can’t imagine how long it took Alain to create all 8,000 watercolor paintings. Music by Yan Volsy + Pablo Pico

We’ve seen an engineer build a robot that can paint giant wall murals. JBV Creative’s robotic painter is decidedly less precise in its approach to creating art, though its abstract paint splatters could still land its entirely randomized works in a modern art museum.

An ordinary ping pong table has a simple green or black finish. After getting his hands on a beat up old ping pong table, builder John Malecki and his co-workers reinforced and refinished it, then gave it a sweet surface design – bright geometric patterns created by swinging paint cans from a paracord rope.

To celebrate the release of God of War Ragnarök, artist Steven Richter created this impressive likeness of the game’s protagonist Kratos. He started by sculpting a clay bust, which he used to create a silicone mold. After filling the mold with resin and letting it set, he painted on all of the details and applied facial hair.

Shane from Stuff Made Here had a big wall in his workshop that he needed to paint. But rather than get out the rollers himself, he spent more than a month engineering and fabricating a robot to do the work for him. But this thing doesn’t just paint a flat color; it outputs multi-color images like a giant inkjet printer.

We just got done repainting some walls at home and it took like 30 minutes to get each of them coated. But this talented painter shows how he covers a whole wall in under a minute after masking and prep of outlets. We’re amazed that the roller held so much paint.

Mood rings use special thermotropic liquid crystals that react to the heat of your fingers. Makers Evan and Katelyn wanted to see if they could create a set of keycaps that change colors in the same way. It took a lot of time and trial and error, but the finished keyboard looks really awesome.

Revisit the early days of desktop computer graphics with BeyondLoom’s browser-based drawing tool. Like the original MacPaint, DitherPaint has just two colors – black and white. It includes a variety of brushes, and a number of patterns to add flair to your 1-bit masterpieces. It also has a handful of animated patterns.

Illustrator Daniele Turturici shows off a little bit of his digital painting technique, as he takes a scene and brings it to life through the addition of light and shadow created by a neon sign. The restaurant’s proprietor is known as a “Draak” in the artist’s universe. Be sure to check out more of his work on Instagram.

Adam of Empire of Joy thought it might be interesting to animate a scenes from other movies in a handpainted style similar to A Scanner Darkly. For his first effort, he painstakingly painted over frames from Avengers: Endgame and used them as keyframes for his animation. (Thanks Joe!)

Artist ZXY698 is an expert at painting wall murals. In fact, he’s so good at it that he painted a 3-dimensional facsimile of his girlfriend sitting on a park bench so he can visit with her even when she’s not around. Hopefully, she won’t fade away any time soon.

A father and daughter playing with finger paints isn’t an uncommon sight. But as you watch this video play out, you’ll quickly realize there’s a bit more talent at work here than your typical home arts and crafts project has to offer.

Hone your artistic skills with this series of six online courses that include drawing and painting in various different medium, along with lots of tips and techniques. You’ll learn about composition, color, shading, as well as working with oils, acrylics, and watercolors.

The Art Assignment argues that whether it be something as primitive as bones or as advanced as a neural network, there’s always a human touch at the root of all machines used to make art. We like to think of it from the other end: art is unfinished until a human mind ponders it.

Annette Labedzki’s paintings are more like temporary sculptures. She molds models of various objects out of thick, frozen layers of paint, then destroys her creations by mixing them down into a new color of paint for a wonderfully soothing type of performance art.

Artist Justinas Zozo shows us the amazing technique he uses to create his photorealistic paintings. He painstakingly cuts dozens of intricate stencils, which he then uses to mask layer after layer of spray paint colors. Kingfisher took him about six months to complete.

Black Light Visuals shows us how they use a tank filled with water and various colors of paints to create a truly one-of-a-kind marbled shoe design. Here, they dip a pair of ordinary white Converse Chuck Taylors and turn them into a wearable work of art.

Mashable introduces us to Tomislav Topic and Thomas Granseuer of Quintessenz. The duo creates colorful and dynamic art installations by spray-painting flexible mesh material, then layering them into gradations of color. When set against real-world backdrops, they look almost like digital imagery.

Artist Iris Scott doesn’t believe in paintbrushes. Instead, she creates detailed and vibrant images using only her gloved fingers. Her works include people, animals, landscapes, water, and urban scenes. Find more of her art on her website, and canvas prints are available here.

Seo Gyeong-deok channels his lifelong love for anime by painting Gundam models and other figures in a vibrant two-dimensional cartoon style. Thestory met with Seo to learn more about his craft. He also accepts commissions. You can see more of his work on his Instagram page. Turn captions on.

Get a great deal on the original natural media painting software, updated for 2019. You’ll get over 900 brushes to bring digital masterpieces to life, along with a dark mode, transparent color wheel, and smoother performance than ever. Save 41% in The Awesomer Shop.

Art Insider introduces us to Perth, Australia-based graffiti artist Straker – known for his ability to replicate the glowing look of neon lights using spray paints. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think his canvases were connected to a high-voltage transformer.