This is a sequel to Top 10 Amazing Mosaic Artworks, which I highly suggest you visit to get the gist of the list. I love modern art, and the lengths to which people will go to express themselves through it. Mosaic art is a particular favorite of mine, and it just fascinates me how people today can do so much with this ancient art form. Here are ten more unusual and fascinating mosaic artworks that will definitely catch your attention.
Saimir Strati, an Albanian artist, holds the Guiness World Record for creating the largest toothpick mosaic. The 86.11-square feet creation is made of 1.5 million toothpicks, and took 40 days to complete. The mosaic, which depicted a galloping horse, was displayed at the Arbnori International Centre of Culture, Tirana, Albania on 4 September 2007.
Saimir Strati gets another spot on my list for his other record-breaking piece, a 988-square feet mosaic made of 229,675 bottle corks. Depicting the theme ‘Mediterranean’, the giant mosaic was unveiled on Sept. 4, 2008 along with 9 other mosaics, including two other record-breaking mosaics made out of nails and toothpicks (see previous entry). Surprisingly, the giant installation, which was displayed in the gardens of the Sheraton Tirana Hotel and Towers, took only 27 days to complete.
Jaina Davis of San Francisco, California, owns a house with a difference. The house, whose interior was decorated by various artist friends of Davis, boasts an amazing staircase completely covered in pencils. The staircase, entitled ‘Pencil-vania,’ was made by Jason Mecier, and features a flower garden mosaic and a futuristic portrait of Jaina Davis, aged 88, all made from pencils. The installation, which took five years to build, contains 92,626 pencils, plus various erasers, sharpeners and other school supplies.
Artist Ran Hwang specializes in creating stunningly beautiful images out of buttons. The buttons are pinned on the surface to create pictures such as birds, trees and Buddha figures. To see more of her whimsical art, go here.
Scottish artist David Mach creates amazing artworks out of thousands of postcards. One particularly amazing work is his depiction of a racehorse made from 8,000 identical postcards of the Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai, which measures 12 by 9 feet. To see more of Mach’s works, go here.
In celebration of Flag Day in June 14, 2002, the city of Lompoc, California, created a 740 x 390 foot US flag made out of 400,000 larkspur flowers. The flag covered 6.65 acres and the stars measured 24 feet in diameter.
To celebrate his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Gatorade teamed up with an American advertising agency to create an amazing mosaic of ‘His Airness’ Michael Jordan from 14,641 Gatorade bottles. The mosaic, illuminated by 200 light boxes, took 16 hours to complete and used limited edition Jordan Gatorade bottles in various flavors.
On March 17, 2008, students of the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition in Mumbai, India succeeded in breaking a very unusual record. 20 students gathered to create a 15.16-square meter mosaic made out of 5,814 sushi pieces, breaking the previous record set by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in Poland, which measured 14.84 square meters. Maki Sushi, Inari Sushi, Nigiri Sushi, Uramaki Sushi, and Chirashi Sushi comprised the mosaic.
On July 26, 2008 Hong Kong Youth Visual Art Association, Hong Kong Chinese Arts Festival, Lo Fung Art Gallery Ltd and Hong Kong Union of Visual Artists Limited, along with 2,000 participants, teamed together to create the largest origami mosaic in the world. The event took nine hours, and entails the creation and pasting of over 100,000 colorful origami stars. The finished mosaic measured 3,453 square feet, depicted five pandas joining hand in hand, symbolizing the Chinese people’s welcome to the coming of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.
In late 2009, a mosaic reproduction of the famous painting Mona Lisa made from 3,604 cups of coffee was created for the Rocks Aroma Festival in Sydney, Australia. Measuring 20 x 13 feet, it was created by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. A team of eight people took three hours to arrange the cups of black coffee, which are ‘shaded’ into different sepia tones by 564 pints of milk.
amazing list i loved it
That's brilliant – the type of skill and vision it must take to create these things blows me away.
I really love how the bottons are scattered in #7. Probably the only thing on the list I would consider as house deco.
*buttons .. sorry, I'm tired
wow. i love eccentric creative people. awesome work… good to see people doing what they want to and what is expected of them only. cheers
Some people got to much time on their hands
Wow this is superb, you have to appreciate the passion and dedication to create such marvels..
i'm sorry, there is almost no skill involved, when you have a computer and you can pixelate you'r premade painting, you've done 60 percent of the work. You need to be very concentrated but you don't need any artistic skills
The skill lies in thinking of it in the first place – especially these days where it's becoming more and more difficult to think of an original concept. It's like a lot of modern art that people criticise by saying "I could have done that". The fact is, the artist actually DID "do that" – and they had the imagination to think of it first (most of the time anyway).
I like your point. We may be rapidly heading towards what I call 'Saturation' in the modern world – where everything has been done – notice how original concepts in the music industry, movie industry, showbiz, fashion, video games etc are becoming rarer? Has every note and chord been found, has every cut and style, every colour, every format, every variation?
I think this has something to do with the 'better and best' logic. We've had better, and we've had the best – the 'biz' is now aiming for the Ultimate (the ultimate game, the ultimate sound, the ultimate movie experince) – but what then? What's after 'The Ultimate'? Is there a 'More Perfect Perfection'?, or are we looking to re-invent the wheel?
(Personally, I think original innovation is peaking out)
I'm old, and an artist, and have often thought the same thing.
Then I go visit evil mad scientist, and related websites, and am amazed all anew.
I agree about saturation point – and I really hope it will mean a return to the idea that great art means beauty – not innovation.
i too agree about the saturation point
however, i have thought that for about 11 years.
the killer was this whole year class i took at 'bama…..
first semester was the general philosophy of art, and the spring class
was just called aesthetics — together they sound kinda redundant, but were
very different in nature
being a serious music lover (punk to classical, classic rock to musical theatre — just not a huge country fan)
i first thought this about music—but good ***** kept coming out (but i will give ya this: every time i hear the spice girls or hollaback girl or my humps, i become convinced that what i thought in 1999 is quickly becoming true)
i have a harder convincing myself the same thing i reltion to movies (but again with so many whatever-part-9, and reboots, i am quickly becoming convinced that what i thought in 1999 is becoming widespread, and fast)
everytime i go to an art museum — same thing
cont'd………….
…..cont'd
all i'm trying to say is that i agree with you jamie, virtus, etc., but im holding on (perhaps foolishly, at this point) to the possibility that i'm wrong again, and everytime i realize that i am more and more pleasently surprised than the last
it will be a horrible day when i finally i am convinced that i am right, beyond a shadow of a doubt
for now, i just hang on to the plausable deniability it takes to not tailspin into the thought that, collectively, the next miley cyrus is the most creativity we'll ever see again
(is there a smiley that shakes , sweats, and turns blue in disgust?)
I like that idea of art returning to being a thing of beauty instead of innovation. Of course, innovation can be beautiful, but I think sometimes people just create crazy things in the name of original art but never achieve the true aesthetic value of art.
I completely agree with you, timothyjames. Cool list, too, and nice site overall.
Ya but the artwork on this list is not very original. Using toothpicks or some other dumb object in a mosaic adds a new twist, kind of, but it is still the same basic idea. None of these are innovative in the same same way that Olitski or other real artists are/ were.
Agree with all you guys even my own art is getting harder and harder to keep fresh , there are only so many things you can do with macaroni and glitter ……but rest assured my magnum opus is still coming…
Beautiful entries, amazing how something so aesthetically pleasing can be created from things that aren't that appealing on their own. I'd be interested to see mosaics that combine a large number of hideously ugly individual pictures to create a beautiful overall image, or vice versa. I think that would create a nice effect.
Makes you wonder what they did with all the leftovers for the food mosaics too. I imagine the sushi was eaten and the Gatorade given away or something similar. I wouldn't have been interested in a cold coffee though, so that one seems like a bit of a waste.
The 'buttons' mosaic was my favourite by far.
Isn't it about a damn time for LV to start putting some metric system units in brackets or something?
There are like..what…five countries in the world using imperial units? How the hell is the rest of the world supposed to know what "86.11-square feet" looks like? Is that the same size as my desk or a very large football stadium?
Oh and, peculiar list
Dude I am european too but I know how to convert it, it's not particulary difficult: 3 feet = roughly 1m (91.44cm). so stop *****ing and use your brain.
Funny, "dude" Julius.
I never said it was particulary difficult. There's always google. But you see, the way I see it, imperial system is obsolete for all practical means, I don't see why would I even bother with it. And "rough" conversion doesn't cut it when we're talking about huge numbers.
And I *do* have the right to *****, same as you. I've seen plenty of popular sites who did this and it made them better. Don't see any reason why LV wouldn't do the same.
" Is that the same size as my desk or a very large football stadium? " implies that you do find it difficult to even make a rough estimation. Rough estimation = 28.7m. Correct value = 26.24m. Oh no 2.46m big deal.
Also the LV audience is 64.5% North American (I don't know how old these values are), so by their majority in numbers, they would have the right to complain about nathaaan90 using the metric system in his list two days ago. But they don't.
It might be nice of the author to write both systems, but he is in no way complied to, nor does it affect the quality of the list if he doesn't.
Damn straight!
@julius said: " Also the LV audience is 64.5% North American (I don't know how old these values are)"____
someone told me recently that those stats are a couple years old, if i'm not mistaken maybe it was only a year??
i'd love to see the demographics now, since lv has grown so much since then
Actually, it doesn't imply that. But your reply implies two things:
1. You have no bloody idea what irony is.
2. You have no bloody idea what it means to run a well-known web site.
That's just a wild guess though, maybe your entire comment is just a well written piece of irony. In that case, I congratulate you.
Personally, due to the international factor of the site, I agree. There are plenty of easily accessed sites that do conversions on every measurement. If you've taken the time to compose a list, what's a small side tab for conversions, when you know your submission will be read by the world?
I've been the author of a couple of lists here, and have striven to provide conversions (Not EVERY time, mind you.) where applicable. (Maybe so I could avoid negative comments like yours.)
There are three: Liberia, Burma and one other I can't quite think of the name of right now.
I wanted to say Narnia here, but I won't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units#Curre…
Just so you know – I have read this comment and am working on a way to make everyone happy in this regard
I am (occasionally) working on a list about about Australia, and am using metric measurements, but have taken care to add the equivalent conversions.
Thanks for the heads up, it's good to know you're listening to user feedback, even when your users are commonly known as *****s.
Hahaha I was just beginning to wonder the same thing
WOW, Amazing!!
These people are really talented. Good list.
And just for amazing creativity, I was really impressed by what creative work people do with paper. Paper Art is simply amazing.
As for mosaic art from ordinary things, check out Rangoli.
Here is the wiki article:
Rangoli . Rangoli are designs made from fine grained powder in India.
If you search google images, you will find some amazing artwork.
Cheers
If u Put ye specs on u can c list is abt things made up of USABLE ordinary things not from unusable things M sure rangoli is not in your daily meal list and rangoli is also can say is a form of art.
Really cool list, my favourite was the pencil staircase
Old comments are currently being imported…
Order will be fully restored within 24 hours.
JAMIEEEAAAAHHH please get it done fast, I hope not to see yet again the same status in the next 2-3 days.
Here might be a conversion
86.11 sq ft- 8 sq meters
988 sq ft- 91.7 sq m
12 by 9 ft= 3.6 by 2.7 m
740 by 390 ft= 225.5 by 118.8 m
6.65 acres = 0.027 sq km
24 ft = 7.3 m (probably obvious by now)
15.16 sq m = 163.1 sq ft (why does the author change the units. Its very confusing. Makes me think he didnt even bother to think what he was writting about/ or maybe he’s really smart and does all these calculations in a flash and he doesnt even notice)
14.84 sq m = 159.7 sq ft
3453 sq ft = 320.7 sq m
20 by 13 ft = 65.6 by 3.9 m
564 pints = here it depends 320 l if its an uk pint and 266.8 l if its and us pint.
88 human years = 616 dog years
@ julius well ft to m may be simple (multiply divide by 3 / 9 if you want to get an area) but its quite annoying with so many numbers. And with pints. We dont even know wich one it is. 86 l is a lot (plus i dont even know whats the conversion or estimate)
Pint Us: 473 ml
Pint Uk: 568 ml
So 564 pints of milk are either 266.87l (Pint Us) or 320.35l (Pint Uk)
The exact measurements I also had to look up, but I just thought of the size of the glass I get at my local Irish Pub when I order a pint….
Thanks for that particular conversion, Julius. Would that explain why it's so easy for Americans to get blitzed in Europe? Or is there a higher %Alc/Vol too? I ask because I'm taking a trip to Bohemia in a few weeks and my in-laws want to take me out to some local spots.
I think it has more to do with the alcohol (esp. beer) culture in european countries, we have a younger drinking age (16 for beer and wine, 18 for liqours) so you get used to alcohol at an earlier age, as well as learn your boundaries earlier. The alcohol percentage is usually around the same, although the most popular american brew, Bud Lite has 5.0% compared to the standard 4.2% in european beers.
Having said that, Bohemia offers you some very nice beers, Pilsner Urquell and the original Budweiser Budvar. I recommend you check out the towns Plzeň and České Budějovice (in western and southern Bohemia respectively), where the 2 are brewed. They are also quite nice to look at
When I was in Europe I rarely felt any buzz from drinking European beers. About 4.9 – 5.1% is standard in Australia.
In germany we have some nice Bockbeers, with some of them clocking in around 15%, these should get you buzzed
@ smokingfrog If u Put ye specs on u can c list is abt things made up of USABLE ordinary things not from unusable things M sure rangoli is not in your daily meal list and rangoli is also can say is a form of art.
lol
Just an FYI #10 says Sept. 4 2007 and #9 says Sept 4 2008 but #9 says they were unveiled together. Or was it simply that #10 was shown in 07' and then again on the same day in 08' when #9 was unveiled?
Yes, #10 was shown in 07' and then again on the same day in 08' when #9 was revealed.
Ps: i really really really hate the new comment system. I usually write on an iphone and it doesnt make any sense. I guess its to late to change back sadly. And i guess a new conversion would be 24h = 3 days cuz ive seen that “will return to order in 24h” in the last 3 lists. I feel like being on a construction site.
Yea man, the 'will return to order in 24 h' is really irksome. I hope Jamiyeah will get it all sorted out soon..
once it's all sorted out it could work I suppose….but right now its a bit irritating, I have to reload every list a couple o'times before I see all the comments
I really hate it too… When I return to visit old lists that had many comments, the comments have all vanished!
Im bleak too. So much hassle . I probly end up not commenting anymore , sad sad loss for all of you ….lol
Nooo! We'll miss you!
The commenting is messed up, but I will never leave. Much to the chagrin of some (?)… Lol!
I will or at the very least change my profile and username si that it looks like im stubborn and keep to my word …
I like the follow up list, mjdolorico. Some people really just have all the time and patience to do something like this. I liked the postcard one. That was the most amazing to me.
The postcard one was one of my favorites too. His whole website was spectacular.
Awesome…
Curses ……….LV aint fun no more
what do you mean?
oh, the comments system…
not the list tho , the list was good . Have you seen the portrait of snoop dog made from joint roaches ?
no, but i did see a portrait of eminem made from m'n'ms, and aportrait of spiderman made from spiderwebs….
Haha! Give me a link to that, please?
I'll try making a list including those, cause I saw them in my Ripley books. I love making art lists.
Cool! Please do…
I'm really trying hard to see you're picture – what is it?
I'm not seeing it…
Hey, fantastic list today – even better than the original! Amazing.
Interesting list.
Now what did they do with all of that Gatorade when they finished? There couldn't have been that many dehydrated athletes in the vicinity.
I suppose they threw out the coffee. No one likes cold coffee.
New comments are ok but we NEED to get back the comment number in order to follow the late replies.
I see where you're coming from mate, but with the embedded comment feature some of the numbers would appear to be jumbled up. Maybe one answer would be to have a 'Sort By Time' function (the Latest Activity button above the comments doesn't apply to replies).
I don´t see why, I mean if I write comment #24, the number sticks to my comment, the direct replies will appear below it (without a number) no matter when are they written. But if someone wishes to reply as a comment and refer to a previous comment, you can always browse up and search for the original comment number which should stick to it.
Right?
I was about to say this in reply to the update, but I may as well say it here: under the new system, it is impossible to tell, whether any new comments have been added since I last visited, and if so, where.
Jamie: How do these approval points work? Scrolling down, I have three different points scores. (It gives me a rough idea of how approved I am, but I'm fussy about consistency.)
Also, is there any way of knowing which comments of mine have attracted approval or disapproval? All else being equal, I prefer to be approved than not approved, so would be more likely to write comments that will gain approval.
Your intensedebate profile lists your comments and the approval ratings for each one.
JF I'm very disapointed. I went from being uber hated, with -51, to somewhat disliked, at -34! WTF
I have thumbs downed your comment just to increase your hate factor….
Every waking moment for the past three days I have spent visiting random lists and pressing these little thumb buttons like a frenzied monkey on speed. Up, down, red, green, it doesn’t matter. It’s…orgasmic…
Even though I have seen the coffee cup Mona Lisa many times in my various internet wanderings, it still never ceases to amaze me.
What the hell is that?
Hey, what is that?.. :-/
These artists must have a lot of patience and a very steady hand to create some of these works
Woyzeck,
Celer, rufus vulpes subsilit pigrem canem.
Graygoros, kastanapose alepou paydon epi pleon tempelas skulon.
Hellenas estin phonetikos, gia seis. May xekinis mazi me.
I posted this as a reply to you on my last list, but the comment have gone all screwy, so here it is again.
I'm not translating any of it for you. You can probably find an online Greek-English dictionary that will do it.
My Greek's really basic, so it would help me if this were in the Greek alphabet and not the Roman one.
I'm guessing the Latin has something to do with a red fox jumping over a dog. I believe Woyzeck asked for a brown fox. He might be angry about this.
The second section, I think, says the same thing – but I can't make out what some of the words are because my Greek is very poor.
The third section appears to say something about Greek being phonetic or having a voice and something about being permitted to begin.
This has been another translation by Scratch, the cunning linguist and lover of languages but master of none.
Rufus also means "ruddy" or "rust colored." The most accurate word is "castaneus," or chestnut-brown, the Latin cognate for the Greek below. Anyway, the red fox is the one I prefer.
Good call. I prefer the red fox too. Brown foxes are boring.
Rufus and ruddy both mean red, not rust coloured (unless the rust is red).
What is the translation of the third section of Greek?
I don't need to translate it, I believe you! I just wanted to make sure that the Roman list wasn't all bull*****. Ha ha ha! Oh, we have some yuks, don't we FlameHorse?
Cool list. Very artistic people, indeed. And now I'm done b/c I don't like the new format. Have a great day, everyone.
I wish I had talent like this
cool list…the coffee one was the only one that really impressed me though. Not saying I could do any of these, but the other ones were kinda boring
I'm voting that The Mynah Bird is an ABSTRACT artist……..
The pencils and buttons I found the most appealing. Having a hard time trying to wrap my head around the postcard art.
Love these lists on mosaics, but would have to admit that some other genres would be rather welcome as well.
These are all really amazing. Being really into art, now I wanna try something new besides drawing and painting. As soon as I scrolled down to the cork one, I thought it was awesome, but the Michael Jordan one takes me back to the Bulls days. Lol
fantastic list!
Art is truly beautiful. The human mind at work is a beautiful thing. I love art for everything it is. Too express yourself, your words, your feelings, through a simple brush stroke or pencil sketch or Gatorade bottles is just awe inspiring. Art… are the words you say when you are left speechless.
A lot of very creative thinking going on in those minds. That's not to say that the art is all to my taste, but I can appreciate creativity even when it doesn't create something I like.
My art is looked upon by some, in a local art group to which I belong, as something "other", they are "Sunday painters", which is wonderful, but they can't wrap their heads around photography as art, much less digital photography, and very much less digitally manipulated photography.
I'm not manipulating the images to make it look like a shark is jumping up to bite a guy hanging out of a helicopter! I'm making the images beautiful, surreal, other-worldly; and all by some very simple manipulations.
Everyone can make art. I truly believe that. Not everyone has found their art to make.
This is so odd, not having numbered comments.
Weird.
I'm not sure I agree with the order of the list (of course that's assuming you put them in order of quality), but I do think it is a fantastic list and a great follow up. I love when people do these kinds of lists because then I end up back in the far reaches of listverse and I get to read great lists all over again.
I ordered this list according to the uniqueness and degree of difficulty of the material used, not by aesthetics, in case you were wondering.
Jfrater how do you not include the once voted most influential art piece all time Fountain by Marcel Duchamp. It was just a toilet seat rotated upside down but it was the beginning of the trend of ordinary objects perceived as art. I don't know how you did not include this
in answer to that, the original title of this list is '10 more unusual mosaic artworks' (follow-up to '10 amazing mosaic artworks') but the editors retitled it to the current one for one reason or another, i'm not sure what.
wow!!! this listing was soo awesome makes me believe that things we ignored mostly will be a great thing if do something!!! and be artistic..
A suggestion for anyone that loves mosaics….you must visit the Cathedral Basilica of St Louis. This Catholic church has approximately 41.5 million glass pieces in more than 7,000 colors covering 83,000 square feet. It is one of the largest mosaic collections in the world and upon entering. I am by no means a religious man, but I was truly humbled on entering the basilica.
The Guell Park in Barcelona also has some great mosiacs.
Listverse Is cool! the new look is cool too!
Stop calling this BS art, please.
this is your brain: —
………" ? ! @ #
'this is your brain on drugs':
—-jump to mynah bird;s comment
I used a spoon as a fork once
i *almost* said this on the previous list, but
when i read this title, sandpaintings came to mind–
it does fit — grain of sand = ordinary thing
and the sand paintings are very artistic, and quite stunning
i suppose one of the reasons it did not appear on the
list is the idea that sand is more of a medium, and not an ordinary thing like a button
buuut…i dont give a ***** —- they are still quite interesting
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cool art work. i wonder if the items got used after?
I enjoyed that video clip of sushi mosaic. The students' concentration and team work were fabulous. I thank you very much for giving me a few moments of pleasure.
Nice list …
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