Realistic nature models by Matthew Albanese

These are photos of the sculptures made by artist Matthew Albanese. Each one looks vast but is actually a table-top model. Artist Matthew spends hours on each sculpture and then uses smart photography to bring them to life.

This may look like an Antarctic scene, but it is a model called Sugarland, made by  him out of 20 pounds of sugar, jelly and corn syrup. The crystals were grown in his studio over the course of two months

Mr Albanese, 26, started making models in 2008 and has already sold seven of his pieces to collectors. He said: "One day I knocked over a tub of paprika. As I was cleaning up the mess I began to daydream and found I was playing with the paprika more than cleaning it up. I thought it was a great shade of red and it reminded me of Mars...

"...So I figured I would bring Mars to me. I went out and bought 12lb of the pungent spice and created my first landscape - 'Paprika Mars'. My studio smelled of paprika, but ever since then I have been interested in finding new materials and pushing myself to find out through experimentation what they could represent in my models"

Some of his designs measure less then three feet in length but the effect is gained by the perspective from which the photo is taken. This scene of rolling plains of grass blown by the wind is made out of faux fur (fields), cotton wool (clouds) and sifted tile grout (mountains)

To create a realistic image of rolling plains of grass blown by the wind, Matthew uses faux fur

Matthew creates cloud effects using cotton wool and careful lightng

This volcano is made out of tile grout, cotton wool and ink, and lit from within

The making of the volcano image, lit from within by six 60-watt light bulbs

A miniature living room...

...which was set on fire

This image of the Aurora Borealis was made by photographing a beam of coloured light against a black curtain to achieve the edge effect. The stars are simply strobe light through holes in cork board

This one is a mixture of many different materials, tile grout, moss, bottle brushes, and actual clippings from ground cover and was built on top of a glass patio table. The sky is canvas painted blue.

This tornado image is made of steel wool, cotton wool, ground parsley and moss

Via - Telegraph , The Sun

Pictures - Matthew Albanese / Solent

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Categories: Arts , Photo