Stunning Hammer & Nail Portraits by David Foster

Instead of using a pen and ink, artist David Foster hammers thousands of nails onto a canvas to generate these extremely detailed portraits. Originally an architect, Foster's love for technical drawing translates perfectly into these meticulously produced arrangements. Each piece is based off of a photograph that the artist first reproduces with an ink pen. He then enlarges the drawing to use as his guide for the finished pieces.

Nail head by nail head, dot by dot, the pointillist images slowly emerge as Foster builds across the canvas. His smaller drawings average only about 5,000 nails while some of the larger pieces can comprise as many as 30,000! The artist says, "I have always been fascinated with how little information the brain needs to interpret a picture and love the easiness of a picture made up from just dots." David’s art covers a range of subjects: celebrities, animals, flowers and get this – even a hammer and nail! The level of exactness and realism in his art is a result of years of practicing and perfecting his technique.

David obviously loves what he does, going by what he tells us on his website. “The whole process thrills me, taking just a hammer and a box of nails and arranging them into an artwork. It is very tangible art and the viewer will find it hard not to touch the work,” he writes. He also insists that the best way to view his work is up close, since photographs don’t do much justice to it.