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7 Artists Who Paint with Everything (Except Paint)

Get creative with fire, blood, gold, wine, coffee, sugar, and toothpaste.
One of Vincent Castiglia's blood paintings, via

This article originally appeared on The Creators Project Netherlands.

In 2015, having sick painterly skills may not be enough to get yourself noticed. These artists distinguish themselves not least by what they paint, but with the materials they use. From addictive stimulants to bodily fluids, here are seven artists who prove that (almost) any substance can do well on canvas.

1. Steve Spazuk paints with fire

Using a fanciful technique called fumage, fire painter Steve Spazuk creates fairytale portraits of people and birds. He uses the flame of a candle as his medium, and then works in the remaining soot with feathers and tassels.

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2. Cristiam Ramos paints with toothpaste

With 20 to 30 toothpaste tubes per painting, artist Christiam Ramos takes around 200 hours to put Miley Cyrus, Robin Williams, or Vincent Van Gogh down on canvas.

3. Lina Viktor paints with gold

Lina Viktor is—hands down—the most luxurious on this list. The 27-year-old Londoner uses only 24-karat gold and a color palette of black, white and royal blue to cover her canvases with geometric shapes.

4. Mary Astidou paints with coffee

Black gold appears to lend itself to detailed portraits of Yoda, Queen Elizabeth II, and cats, as proved by the coffee art of Mary Astidou. Read our article on Astidou's caffeinated work here.

5. Vincent Castiglia paints with his own blood

Red works by Vincent Castiglia are made with the blood of the artist himself. Super dark. The paintings, which take months to create, almost even cost the artist his own life. "At first I did not know exactly how much blood I could take out. When my right lung collapsed at one point, I knew I had to use less."

6. Xiaonan paints with sugar

In addition to his usual chalk drawings of celebrities, Chinese painter Xiaonan makes saccharine creations from granulated sugar.

7. Amelia Fais Harnas paints with wine

Amelie Fais Harnas embraces wine stains on white tablecloths. On her website she says that she does, indeed, find herself drinking some of the wine she uses for painting.

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