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This Illustration Took 300 Hours to Draw, Dot by Dot

'Patience and Discipline' is both the work's title and what Xavier Casalta and Rémy Boiré needed to make it.
Images courtesy the artist

Before the printing press, European monks passed the entirety of written knowledge down through the ages in hand-written manuscripts, accompanied by intricate illuminations that distracted from the wall of text. A new project called Patience and Discipline from artists Xavier Casalta and Rémy Boiré channels both the aesthetic and the tedium of this ancient art form into an intricate typographical illustration that took a total of 300 hours to make.

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Boiré did the linework for Patience and Discipline, meticulously outlining ornate plant and scroll patterns that hearken back to ancient book-making, and Casalta shaded the entire 22 x 30-in2 space. From afar it loos like a pristine, fairly traditional illustration, but up-close the sweat, tears, and hand-cramps that must have gone into the millions of ink dots are obvious.

Check out a making-of video by Bastien Rossi and some close-ups of Boiré and Casalta's incredible feat of patience and discipline, below.

Check out more of Xavier Casalta and Rémy Boiré's work on their websites.

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