Human Chameleon Body Art

Chameleon body painting camouflages the model, creating a near invisible effect. These beautiful body art works make it seem as though the artist's model is merging with the background.

Body painting is the practice of using the human body as a canvas. The models are most often nude, or wearing just the bare minimum. Too much clothing and the body art, severed by the hems, can lose its seamlessness.

The following body paintings have been painted in such a way that the models seem to fade into the background, as if wearing an invisible cloak.
Painstaking attention to details, colors and lighting makes these works possible, with the models staying motionless for hours while the artist is busy.

Wallpaper Camouflage Painting by Emma Hack

In these body painting pieces, body painting artist Emma Hack uses decorative wallpaper as a background. She continues the wallpaper’s patterns on the model’s body, carefully lining up the edges of the designs and keeping the colors consistent.
On average, these body paintings take nine hours, but it can take up to 19 hours to complete a piece, depending on the level of detail required and how much of the body she will be painting.
Although the model’s skin is visible in many of these pieces, the effect is such that the nude woman seems to be a part of the wallpaper.

Environmental Camouflage Body Painting

These models have been painted in rural and industrial surroundings that would otherwise be quite plain. The artist studies the textures of the model’s background, meticulously painting rotting wood, rusting metal or flaking old paint onto the models’ bare skin.

Painting straight lines onto a body that has curves and hollows can be quite difficult. The artist must be sure to compensate for the shape of the body in order to recreate the straight edges found in architecture.
In these works of art, lighting and camera position are very important. If the model casts a shadow against the background, or moves even slightly, the human chameleon optical illusion can be lost.

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Toast Mosaics: You Could be Eating Art for Breakfast

Modern artists use a wider variety of art materials than their predecessors to create their artworks. It seems that nowadays, even a slice of bread cannot be protected from the rampant creativity of food artists.

The Marvellous History of Toast

Toast has got to be the greatest thing since bread came sliced. Sliced bread was first marketed and sold in 1928 by the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicouthe, Missouri. This revelation in bread production was labeled as “The greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.” In 1943, US officials imposed a ban on sliced bread as a wartime conservation measure, as it was believed that sliced bread used a heavier wrapping than their unsliced cousins. Within three months the ban was lifted and bakeries were once again allowed to sell ready-sliced bread.

Above: A Chillicothe Baking Company poster advertising the advent of sliced bread in 1928.

Before the birth of the electric toaster, slices of bread were toasted by placing them into a metal frame and then holding the bread over an open fire or flame. There are records of electric toasters as far back as the 1870s, but it was not until the early 1900s that electric toasters became commercially available.

Above: Early toasters would toast one side of a slice at a time. The toast had to be turned manually.

Toast Art

Toast art can be created on a single slice of toast to create a stand-alone artwork, or several pieces of bread toasted to different shades can be arranged to create a mosaic image. 

Ingrid Falk and Gustavi Aguerre

Ingrid Falk and Gustavi Aguerre created their toast mosaic, The Toaster, using more than 3,000 pieces of toast. Toast that had been grilled for a longer period of time turned black, creating a contrast with slices of bread that had only been lightly toasted. Looks like art, smells like breakfast.

Arne Felix Magold

Arne Felix Magold’s Toast Pixels uses 612 slices of toasted bread to create an image of a woman’s eye. Magolduse digital imaging software to assist him in creating his original design, before putting his toaster to work.

David Reimondo

David Reimondo uses an aluminium mask to protect the areas of the bread that he wishes to keep as a light color. He then toasts the bread that is not protected by the mask, leaving behind his design. Once toasted, the slices of bread are then encapsulated in a transparent resin block, which preserves the artwork and adds to its aesthetic quality.

Maurice Bennet

Maurice Bennet’s designs are inspired by Native Australian Aboriginal artworks. In many of his mosaics, Bennettreats the pieces of bread like puzzles, cutting shapes from one slice to fill a similarly-shaped hole in another slice. This technique creates both textural and color contrasts. Bennet sometimes combines several different media to create his edible art, and has even created fashion items such as dresses and jewelry out of toast.

Videos of Toast Art

Toast art is being used as an advertising and marketing medium, as seen in the two videos below. The first video is more fan art than advertising, as it is a portrait of YouTube’s ‘Grandmother of YouTube”, TheHill88. The artist uses Vegemite, an Australian bread spread, to ‘paint’ the toast, while also scraping away parts of the browned toast to create shades of color on the bread.

The next video is a music video for the band, OK Go. The band is known for having unique music videos that go viral online soon after their creation. The artists used 215 loaves of bread to make this stop-frame animation. The bread was ‘rescued’ from certain disposal, as it was past its sell-by-date.

Create Your Own Digital Toast Art at The Bread Art Project


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Japanese Food Art: Not Just a Tasty Meal

Japanese chefs pride themselves not only on the flavor and texture of their food, but also on the attractive presentation of a meal. In Japan, the presentation of a meal is as important as the taste and texture of the food. Japanese chefs pride themselves on the creative, artistic nature of dish, as well as the flavors within the meal.

Rice Art

By coloring the rice and then shaping it, these creative chefs have created comical, edible characters. Most of these dishes have been designed for the delight of children, but are also enjoyed by adults. The chef uses other foodstuffs in the dish, such as seaweed, to give the character more personality.


Sushi Food Art

Sushi is one of Japan’s most famous and internationally appreciated foods. Sushi is well-known foe being not only delicious, but an attractive, healthy meal. These chefs have taken the artistic food a step further, using colored sushi rice, fish roe (fish eggs), seaweed sheets and different vegetables to create patterns and pictures with the sushi.

Watermelon Art

These chefs have used watermelons as a canvas for their designs. Cutting into the fruit at different depths allows them to utilize a specific color layer within the fruit. The green portions of the picture are the skin, the white is found below the skin and the pinks are found at the centre of the melon. By carefully cutting around the green portions, the artistic chef can create an artwork from the simple fruit.

Japanese food is more than just sustenance. Each meal can be appreciated for its flavor, texture and aesthetic value. This artistic nation can turn any drab, plain food stuff into an exciting edible art work to excite artistic palettes.


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The Art of Living Plant Sculptures

Live plant sculptures give any garden a sense of surrealism, bringing interest to areas that would otherwise be quite dull.

The Art of Topiary

Topiary is the art of trimming and pruning plants to create a spcific shape. These plants are usually perennials, which means they will live for several years, sometimes even decades. Plants popularly chosen for topiary art are fast-growing, bushy shrubs that can withstand heavy pruning.

This form of garden art dates back to Roman times in Europe, with popular topiary shapes resembling obelisks. Obelisks were large standing stones that were carved to have the shape of a pointed egg or elongated water drop. This shape is still popular even today. Hedges are a simple form of topiary, as are small trees that are trimmed to be round or square in shape.

Training the plants over a wire frame allows the artist to create a number of shapes, even humanoid figures such as the wizard topiary design, shown below. The base of the wizard’s hat is part of the wire frame and is probably made from wood.

Different types of plants create different effects in a topiary design. In this design of a little girl running, the girl’s hair has been created with a long-leafed plant.

Using plants of differing colors can add interest and appeal. Note how the plants used for the elephants body are a different color from the elephant’s tusks.

Topiary art often takes the form of geometric shapes. Straight lines are not often found in nature, so square, rectangular or triangular topiaries can give a garden a unique geometric appeal, especially when offset by round or oval topiary shapes.

Topiary designs can follow any form that the artist chooses. This spiral design, created by continuously pruning the shrub into a spiral shape, can be an attractive show piece in a garden landscape.

Topiary artworks are a popular attraction in public gardens and garden centers. The shapes and designs are based on the imagination and creativity of the topiary artist. Below are some more pictures of gardens and parks that include plant sculptures in their design.

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