AN artist has created a portrait of hip hop star will.i.am using nothing but thousands of black eyed peas.
Dubbed ‘Peacasso’, university student Lee Merricks spent 24 hours in a four day period slaving over the 85cm by 60cm portrait and positioning each pea by hand.
The artwork contains around 5kg of black eyed peas. It is unsure how many peas in total were used.
The work was commissioned by Alton Towers Theme Park resort to celebrate the band’s forthcoming performance at the Staffordshire venue.
A spokesperson said: “We hope that somebody might get the chance to win the portrait or when they play at the theme park we could even present it to will.i.am and see what he thinks of it.
“Lee worked into the late hours of the night to complete this and we think he has done a fantastic job.
“We wanted to celebrate the face that the resort was hosting one of the few Black Eyed Peas UK dates and thought this was a good way to do that.”
Samantha Horne, 22, one of the GBP 39 ticket holders for the event on July 6, said: “I’m surprised nobody has thought of this before. It looks great.”
