Some art looks like it’s been thrown together in minutes. Some looks like it took hundreds of hours. These beautiful anatomical images, made using quilled paper, definitely fall into the second category.
Called the Tissue Series, artist Lisa Nilsson has constructed a range of anatomical cross sections of the human body using rolled pieces of Japanese mulberry paper. It’s a technique known as quilling, or paper filigree, and each piece takes weeks to assemble.
It might not shock you to hear that she starts with a real photo, and then build up the image from there. To roll the paper, she uses whatever appropriately sized cylindrical items are to hand: pins, needles, dowels, drill bits. You should definitely look at a bigger set of photos over on photographer John Polak’s Google+page, and visit Lisa’s website too, while you’re at it. [Lisa Nilsson and John Polak via Laughing Squid]