ARTIST BRINGS DRAWINGS TO LIFE BY USING INCREDIBLE DOTTING METHOD

A thorough drawing requires time, just like any other kind of art. However, Xavier Casalta, a French stippling artist, works on a single piece for hundreds or even thousands of hours, often over years. Millions of tiny dots are meticulously applied to paper to create Casalta's incredibly detailed drawings of buildings, plants, and other subjects. Although the pointillism technique requires a great deal of patience, the results are well worth the effort.

From dot to dot, Casalta builds dimension, tone, and form with a basic black fineliner pen. Casalta tells My Modern Met, "The method absolutely fascinates me." I want to push its limits with my most recent work, a massive still life. It will take about three years to finish this big project. Even though I'm just getting started, I'm excited to share more.

In another recent piece, Casalta spent about 15 months and 300 hours putting nearly 48 million dots to a 140 × 100 centimetre (about 55 x 40 inch) sculpture that showed a bust of Marcus Aurelius surrounded by innumerable flowers. The artist posted on Instagram, saying, "[It] was by far the most challenging painting I've ever done." "It truly tests your patience and discipline to sit in front of the same drawing nearly every day for 15 months in a row."