Hyper-realism

The unfocused background of this image makes it look like a photograph. In fact Grain of Sand is a painting by New York artist Denis Peterson, who blows up small photos by 1-2000 times to capture every detail for his hyper-realistic paintings. The Mail Online recently posted a page of his work (title link). The big question is: Why waste a month painting a detailed image from a photo? Answer: his paintings fetch up to £30,000 each.