PetaPixel

Photo “Printed” by Hand Using 200,000+ Nonpareils Candy Sprinkles

Photo Printed by Hand Using 200,000+ Nonpareils Candy Sprinkles sprinkles1 mini

For a fine arts project at his university, art student Joel Brochu spent a whopping 8 months meticulously recreating a photograph using tiny nonpareils (the tiny sprinkles used on cakes and donuts). 221,184 individual sprinkles were placed on the 4-foot-wide board, which was covered with double-sided tape and a thin layer of glue. Each sprinkle was placed by hand using jewelry tweezers.

Photo Printed by Hand Using 200,000+ Nonpareils Candy Sprinkles sprinkles2 mini

A custom computer program was used to break the photo down into individual sprinkles, of which there were only six colors: red, orange, green, blue, black, and white. They were combined in different ways to create the different hues seen in the resulting piece — similar to how inkjet printers work. Once completed, the piece was permanently preserved using some clear acrylic resin.

Photo Printed by Hand Using 200,000+ Nonpareils Candy Sprinkles sprinkles5 mini

The original photograph is titled “Be Patient“, and was made by photographer Shingo Uchiyama. You can find more photographs here.

(via Flickr via Laughing Squid)


 
 
  • http://www.facebook.com/jroalkvam Jostein Roalkvam

    Dedication!

  • http://artsocket.com Dmitri

    wow that must have taken some serious, tedious, frustrating, eye-popping work! Great way of transforming a usual photograph into an work of art. Conforms with my theory of relationship between the amount of work/love put in to project and the artistic value of the end product.

  • Anonymous

    Not sure I could live with it on my wall but I absolutely love art that’s just a little bit insane.

  • Anonymous

    Would have taken less time to design a machine to do it automatically.

  • Anonymous

    Why?

  • will hall

    why a specialist program? im pretty sure you can define the palette to use in a gif image

  • Dave

    Some how I think methamphetamine’s had something to do with this.

  • Anonymous

    ca I just draw your attention to the fact that this is by no stretch of the imagination, a “photo”.

  • White_tulipe

    That’s really amazing that talent make him unique

  • Anonymous

    “There were only six colors: red, orange, green, blue, black, and white”?… I’m pretty sure I spot a yellow sprinkle in the 3rd pic.

  • http://twitter.com/zak Zak Henry

    8 Months seems a little slow. My Grandmother does cross-stitches which is pretty much the same DPI, and it doesn’t take her that long.

  • http://twitter.com/bullokie Noun /ˈbʊlək/

    What a letdown. The title of this blog is *Peta*Pixel, yet this “artwork” is clearly of the kilopixel order. 
    Clean up your act, Zhang; I’m not interested unless there’s at least 1000000000000000 nonpareils involved.

  • http://www.petapixel.com Michael Zhang

    *sigh*… you’re right. I thought no one would notice…

  • http://twitter.com/theonejoeblount Joe Blount

    I don’t understand all the hate. It’s a really interesting concept and a great piece of art. It might not BE a photograph, but he used photography as part of his inspiration to create the piece. 

  • http://twitter.com/bullokie Noun /ˈbʊlək/

    Don’t mistake me for a hater, I think it’s a fantastic piece of art. 
    It gets right to the heart of how we define photography – if we call a digital print of ink-dots on a page a photo, why not tiny dots of colourful candy?