Awesome Art

Diamond painting kits offer a fresh take on paint-by-numbers. They let you recreate works of art by placing tiny rhinestones to create shiny, pixelated versions of pieces like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. In addition to the sets we found on Amazon, the guys at Pretty Neat Creative can make custom kits based on your own images.

Ben Hoblyn and Ross Montgomery of Dice Ideas make art using D6 dice as their medium. They use the six pip configurations to create shades of light and dark, resulting in monochrome images which reveal themselves the further back you stand from them. Their biggest piece so far is a tiger made from 30,000 dice.

Gav of The Slow Mo Guys poured paint onto a wooden disc, then spun it with a drill at speeds up to 1500 RPM. While there’s nothing particularly notable about spin art, what makes this video interesting is the rotation synchronized high-speed footage that shows how the colorful patterns emerge in a split second.

Sandgrain Studio creates minimal posters inspired by classic motion pictures and TV shows. Using a clean and contained color palette of muted greens and oranges, they bring a quiet sophistication to everything from Robocop to The Big Lebowski to Back to the Future. They also make Star Wars, Avengers, and Lord of the Rings sets.

Thomas Pavitte’s clever illustrations offer a unique spin on adult coloring books. Each image is hidden within a pair of concentric spirals, which only reveals itself as you fill in the lines. Use two colors to create a duotone. Choose from music icons, cities, or animals.

Hailing from Vladivostok, Russia, Art Brothers Glass makes some incredible stained glass pieces. One of their more modest works is this colorful suncatcher of the moon with a trio of astronauts (or cosmonauts) and a satellite dangling below. Each 8.9″ x 7″ piece is handmade, so expect subtle differences.

You’re the captain now. Show ‘em who’s boss in power meetings with one of these statement pieces on your lapel. Whether your spirit animal is a tiger, panther, elephant, or monkey, these ersatz medals of honor establish your dominance with a roar. Hand embroidered and beaded, they’re commissioned by Gold Bug Gallery.

Three centuries before Pantone colors, artist A. Boogert meticulously cataloged hundreds of paint pigments. The Galobart Books is offering a limited run of this fascinating piece of design history. Each book comes in a slipcase with a numbered certificate, 10 frameable prints, and a study guide. View the original book here.

NYC design collective Breakfast shows off another one of their amazing kinetic artworks. As its clock-like hand rotates, it uses electromagnets to push and pull steel pins into place, displaying silhouetted images of those who have stood in front of its camera.

Got some scratched-up vinyl records you don’t care about anymore? Maker Nick Zammeti saturated a stack of old 45s in resin, then shaved them down on a lathe in an attempt to create a layered bowl. The project was not without its challenges, but Nick came up with a creative use for the bits he was able to salvage.

It’s breakfast time somewhere, right? Sit back and enjoy a tall stack of pancakes, as DA BOMB ART fixes 20 meticulously illustrated edible logos, inspired by movie studios and production companies. They look awesome, but we’d slather them with butter and syrup and devour them all in minutes.

There’s something so satisfying about woodturning and lathe videos, watching artists carve away at a solid block of material to reveal smooth shapes and interesting patterns. Watch as woodworker Olivier Gomis turns sticks of lumber into what he refers to as an “average size” bowl.

Do you love fancy ice cubes in your cocktails? You could make them in a mold, or you could do it like BAR Go’s Samurai Bartender. Sit back and watch as this talented artist carves chunks of ice into smooth rectangles, cubes, and jewel shapes using nothing but his skill and a razor-sharp knife.

Spray-painted art is usually pretty imprecise. But the unnamed artist in this clip shows off an impressive amount of control as they painted a portrait by modulating the spatter from a thin line of spray paint, much like the lines produced by a dot-matrix printer. The technique is amazing, but that face is a little creepy.

Created for lovers of contemporary art and cocktails, Art Boozel is sure to please with more than 50 mixed drinks, each inspired by a famous artist. Drinks include the Frida Kahlo with tequila and watermelon, the Salvador Dalí with Spanish sherry and sesame, and the Yayoi Kusama, a sweet-tart mix of gin, pumpkin, lime, and ginger.

As color arrangements go, we’ve always loved the smooth transitions that occur as hues blend to form a gradient. In this wonderfully satisfying clip from Jukebox Print, watch nine ink globs gradually mix at their on the platen of a printing press in preparation for the paper to roll through.

This fascinating but brief video shows a special glassblowing technique that involves pouring molten glass onto spinning platters. As the glass spreads into the mold, it captures the underlying pattern and smooths out the glass on top. We’d love to see the finished pieces.

Japanese artist Yamanono makes incredibly lifelike miniature animals from felt. Here, they create a brown and white tabby cat from the fluffy textile. The whole process is fascinating to watch, from hand-painting eyeballs to painstakingly placing individual hairs on kitty’s head. They’ve got something for dog lovers too.

This unique piece of decor puts an illuminated world map on your wall. Created by Zero Degree, the World Light is a 3D cutout wood map by day and lights up with thousands of tiny dots at night, like cities in nighttime satellite imagery. It’s available in natural wood or white finishes, in traditional or geometric map designs.

Do you like to doodle with colored pencils? This pencil holder gets them out of their box and turns them into a desktop work of art. The curved organizers are made out of beech wood by Bond Art Studio, and can be ordered in 24, 36, 48, and 72 pencil sizes, and have a storage tray for accessories like pens, smudgers, and erasers.

Artist Douglas Pryor specializes in sculpting, raising, chasing, and repousse techniques to produce incredible 3-dimensional metal art. Watch as he hammers a flat sheet of copper into a playful sculpture of a gecko slurping syrup off a stack of pancakes. He’s currently working on an awe-inspiring crocodile.

Artist Will Storey of Life in Layers makes incredibly detailed and deep works of art by layering together pieces of laser-cut wood. This large-scale work titled Reflections of Perspective is truly a masterpiece. This time-lapse video shows how it came together. You can request custom commisions on his website.

Artist Niklas Roy shows off a computer-controlled graffiti painting machine called the Graffomat. In this example, the motorized plotter sprays out a sequence of images that serve as frames for brief animations. Now he needs some spray paints that don’t drip so much.

Pastry artist Lara Mason specializes in baking unusual and realistic cakes. If you’ve got a strange request, she’ll rise to the challenge, even if your idea involves an anatomically-correct bulldog named Dave in a captain’s uniform, or an upside-down Spider-Man hanging from his web.

UK lettering artist Seb Lester has a knack for creating repeating patterns. His vibrant and whimsical Monkey Action series currently features two primates playing tennis, and another riding a BMX bike on an Escher-esque course. Both designs are available on throw pillows, laptop cases, blankets, and t-shirts.

Hong Kong-based artist Alfred Cheng creates incredible black and white portraits using sewing thread and a circle of nails. What makes them even more amazing is that he uses a single strand of thread to create each image. Art Insider explains his painstaking process.