Phoenix, Arizona-based artist Daniel Edlen is one incredibly talented (and patient) artist. Using just white acrylic paint, he sits and dabs thousands of tiny dots on old vinyl records until a famous musician’s face emerges. Depending on the amount of detail, one vinyl painting can take up to a whole month to complete.
Recently, he updated his portfolio with some recent works that show the results of his painstaking process. Because Edlen only uses white paint, he must dab just the right amount in each area and no mistakes can be made. What’s most striking is that he doesn’t use black paint at all, which means he’s left those parts unpainted (like white space, only black).
As he tells us, “The technique is kind of like Pointillism except it’s only white, with the density of the layers creating the shading. I came up with the idea after learning how to do rapidograph dot drawings, since I had duplicate records of my favorites.”
So why doesn’t he just paint with normal brushstrokes? Edlen explains, “It’s challenging painting on raw records because the paint streaks if I stroke it. Dabbing is the only way it works, but consistency is hard because I don’t use any black and I can’t remove paint easily once it’s dried.”
To really appreciate these works, make sure to check out this video. Just based on the comment that founder and CEO of Behance, Scott Belsky, left on his Behance page (“loving this – its an art I’ve never seen before. and well presented!”), you’ll realize that these works are, indeed, something incredibly special.
