These aren’t paintings and those aren’t brushstrokes. These three portraits aren’t even digital creations—they’re embroideries. Each line of color is a single strand of thread, carefully stitched by artist Daniel Kornrumpf, completing what looks like a Chuck Close painting.

These pictures take me back to a color theory class I took in college, and to an assignment we were given, to replicate a photograph with pieces of color cut out from magazines. The project took me 30 hours of cutting and pasting and matching colors and it hurt to look at any picture, because I could instantly see all the variations in tone and shade and had a headache for a solid week. Well, thanks a lot, Daniel—the headaches are back!Believe it or not, there are even more portraits on Daniel’s website.