The Plastic Arts are sometimes considered to be the three dimensional visual art forms of ceramics or sculpture, but sometimes also defined as all art forms excluding that of literature and music. I consider The Mona Lisa to be the first plastic painting. Leonardo's portrait achieved a level of realism previously unattained in the annals of Western Art. And by saying "real" I in no way imply a photographic realness. What I mean is that it is truly a picture of a woman created from paint herself. She appears to be a real creature made out of paint, not a painted likeness of a woman.  It would seem perfectly natural for her to wink at you or get up and walk out of the frame. She is modeled three dimensionally in a way that makes her real, or as real as a paint person can be.

I created this image using a small sponge tool I made myself. It is composed of 6,912 squares whose colors were decided upon by their overall value. It is just a massive value painting done in a printmaking method.

I was once building a puzzle of The Mona Lisa. My girlfriend of the time, Holly, commented that she liked the size of the puzzle. I told her that it was less than two inches off the size of the original art work and that I did not know why they would not have just made the puzzle the same size of the painting itself. She replied, "Well, they always find one way to fuck you."