Watch This Artist "Paint" Animal Portraits With Gunpowder and Fire

You're probably familiar with painting with watercolors, but Wyoming-based artist Danny Shervin uses a more unique medium to create his animal portraits. According to DesignTaxi, the artist learned about gunpowder art in college and began to experiment with it, shaping the powder into pointillistic images and finishing each work in dramatic fashion—with a controlled flame.

The portraits take multiple hours, with each tiny gunpowder particle carefully positioned, Shervin writes on his website. On Facebook and Instagram, the artist shares photos and videos and responds to fan questions about his process. "I don't paint with anything tacky," he said to one follower, "it's just a tedious process in getting the powder placed and burned before anything bumps it."

Watching the flame ignite the powder and move across the works of art in waves is memorizing, but the process is also dangerous. Enjoy Shervin's videos below, but please do not try this at home.

[h/t DesignTaxi]

Images via Paint With Gunpowder