© Alex Querel / Barcroft Media
These amazingly detailed celebrity faces may look like sketches but
they are in fact carved out of unwanted phone books.
For full story and pictures:
Sculptor Alex Queral, 51, from Philadelphia, USA., has hand crafted
some of the world’s most famous faces including President Obama, Jack
Nicholson, Bob Dylan and Spartan Kirk Douglas.
With a deft hand he has even recreated health-battling actor Patrick
Swayze and Sharbat Gula, the Afghan woman with amazing eyes who who
was made famous by National Geographic magazine.
And in an admirable green-fingered move, the artist got his idea and
started chipping away when he noticed piles of unused phone books just
lying around.
He said: “Every year when the new phone book comes out you see just
piles of the old ones lying around waiting for collection.
“I’m sure a lot of hard work goes into recycling them but there are
thousands that go unused at all because most people just use the
internet to find people these days.
“I was out looking for wood to make a sculpture one day and I noticed
a huge pile of them on the pavement. I suddenly thought they would
probably make a pretty good material for carving, so I gave it a go.”
The resourceful artist now produces up to two new impressions every
month and has been crafting his works for 14 years.
He begins by selecting his famous face and copies it by freehand
sketching.
His drawing is then placed over the phone book as a template and he
uses an artist’s scalpel or basic razor blades to patiently slice away
at the thousands of pages inside the famous book.
“It can be quite tense work sometimes because it takes a long time to
finish and when you cut something away you can’t get it back again.
“Nearing the end of the carving and then suddenly having it ruined by
a careless cut can be pretty crushing. You have to start all over
again.”
Out of his huge repertoire of celebrity ‘mugs’, the part-time natural
foods shop worker definitely has his favourites.
“Some celebrities have just got brilliant faces,” he said. “People
like John Goodman and Jack Nicholson are so instantly recognisable
because they have these odd features that really stand out.
“It’s those kind of people who work out better in the book.”
Words by Liam Miller
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