He draws 'em like he sees 'em.

September 25, 2014 3:42 PM

Remarkable time-lapse video of artist Marcello Barenghi creating a hyperrealistic drawing of a vodka bottle.
(N.B. All videos contain highly annoying music tracks. Mute button recommended.)

More pieces by the same artist:
Bag of M&Ms
Lightbulb
Heinz Baked Beans

posted by Atom Eyes (27 comments total)

YOU WILL FEEL AWESOME
posted by Wolfdog at 4:12 PM on September 25, 2014

Um... the music isn't that bad. It's just kind of weather channel-ish.

Also, the guy can draw.
posted by freakazoid at 4:21 PM on September 25, 2014

It's amazing how the elements look like a drawing, until, after some imperceptible bit of wizardry, they don't.
posted by oddman at 4:37 PM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]

What I meant to say was there was a more approprotiaewoirt soundtrakc abvliable.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:40 PM on September 25, 2014

That is super-cool and if I lived a 1,000 lifetimes I could never do anything like this, but the liquid in the vodka bottle should be parallel with the top of the paper.
posted by StephenF at 4:44 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Came for the meh, but was totally impressed. There was a specific point where the vodka bottle just popped out of the page/screen for me.
posted by carter at 4:59 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Watch the Twix one on his channel. Wow.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 5:20 PM on September 25, 2014

I'd like to see, not the whole thing in realtime, but at least part of it in realtime, like to see how long it really takes in terms of doing a line or some fill or shading... highlights. It's all so easy in fast mode, but clearly it must be a lot slower with a lot more attention to detail. LET ME SEE THAT PROCESS!!!!
posted by symbioid at 5:21 PM on September 25, 2014

I snuck a peek at the end of it first and I was sure this had to be some sort of trick, like he started with a photograph of a bottle, erased it a bit at a time and then played the whole thing in reverse.

That's a remarkable talent.
posted by mhoye at 5:28 PM on September 25, 2014

He has a web site. You can buy prints for a pretty fair price. No word on originals.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:29 PM on September 25, 2014

Well I mean the bottle looks fine but the artist seems really janky and fake looking.
posted by angerbot at 5:43 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but did you ever get a really good look at Salvador Dali? He was just a bunch of cats taped together.
posted by Atom Eyes at 5:57 PM on September 25, 2014 [15 favorites]

M&M's? Those are clearly Skittles.

(This is awesome!)
posted by nzero at 6:31 PM on September 25, 2014

Wow. Totally f'in brilliant.

If I could do this, I wouldn't leave the house. I'd just get magazines in the mail every month and draw every single photo in them, front to back, over and over, forever.

Especially if I could bang them out in 3 minutes or so.

Does it say anywhere how long this really took?
posted by nevercalm at 6:39 PM on September 25, 2014

Is he using a camera lucida?
posted by scrowdid at 6:42 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Does it say anywhere how long this really took?

Yeah, in the YouTube description. The vodka bottle took 4 hours and 23 minutes.
posted by jhc at 6:51 PM on September 25, 2014

Came for the meh, but was totally impressed.

Same here. And for some reason I have a craving for a handful of peanut M&Ms washed down with a slug of vodka.
posted by TedW at 8:28 PM on September 25, 2014

I have not ever seen an illustrator draw/paint caustics before. That's really impressive.
posted by bz at 9:17 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

And for some reason I have a craving for a handful of peanut M&Ms washed down with a slug of vodka.

Yeah, to finally get rid of the aftertaste of the Calcifer feeding video.
posted by hat_eater at 12:22 AM on September 26, 2014

It's amazing how the elements look like a drawing, until, after some imperceptible bit of wizardry, they don't.

It's like there's a checklist in my brain of "things that mean what you're looking at is a real object" and once enough of them are checked, my brain just goes "oh alright, it's real I guess".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:30 AM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

It's like there's a checklist in my brain of "things that mean what you're looking at is a real object" and once enough of them are checked, my brain just goes "oh alright, it's real I guess".

That's probably how reality works, too.
posted by chavenet at 2:07 AM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

The guy is good.

It's kind of interesting and somewhat sad, though, that his work is seen today as so amazing and unusual. His sort of hyper-real illustrations used to be a pretty common commercial style. Throughout the 70's and 80's, you could open a Black Book and see pages and pages of similar work by hundreds of artists from around the world. But, those days are long gone and illustrators are a dying breed, really.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:11 AM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is one of those things that makes me so sad I have absolutely no talent for visual art. I mean, none. I often have to paint things for theater, and unless I have exact steps with measurements and such, I'm useless.
posted by xingcat at 7:27 AM on September 26, 2014

I'm not an artist, and maybe this is obvious, but I was amazed that he starts with water-colors. If I was tasked with creating photo-realistic drawing of a bottle, I'd start by realistically drawing the bottle cap, then photo-realistically drawing the neck of the bottle, etc. etc.
posted by artsandsci at 10:30 AM on September 26, 2014

I was wondering how many different pens and pencils he used.
He has a list of materials used in the YouTubes on his website.
posted by MtDewd at 2:08 PM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Is he using a camera lucida?

I assume he's using a photograph as reference.
posted by dfan at 2:10 PM on September 26, 2014

artsandsci...Artists approach work like this in layers, rather than complete individual sections. The watercolors are a base layer upon which he will build up to the final image.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:34 PM on September 26, 2014