Presidential Penny Portrait

My little brother, Shane, made this masterpiece all out of pennies.  I think it is absolutely amazing.  You need to look at it from far away to truly get the full effect.  Here are some random facts about the picture from Shane:

• Made from 1,638 pennies (1,612 whole pennies and 52 half pennies).
• Each row has 31 and 1 half pennies.
• There are 52 rows.
• The pennies are staggered (so the second row is offset from the first row so each row “fits” into the neighboring row), resulting in the need to have a half penny on each row.
• There is at least one penny from each year from 1909 to 2009.
• There is one 1943 steel penny (lower right-hand corner).
• The US mint is making 2009 pennies with new designs on the reverse – there are 4 different designs: Birth and Early Childhood in Kentucky (aka “Log Cabin”), Formative Years in Indiana (aka “Rail Splitter”), Professional Life in Illinois, and Presidency in Washington, DC. I wanted to use at least one penny with each reverse design (although all the pennies in the picture only show the front); but only the first two were available when assembling the picture, so I’ll swap out two pennies for the other 2009 designs later.
• I tried to find enough dark pennies, but ended up coloring some pennies (using different methods) to have enough dark and mid tones.
• The pennies are fastened to a piece of pressed wood (masonite).
• The pennies were fastened primarily using contact cement; although I did experiment with gorilla glue and liquid nails as well.
• The picture is fairly heavy, and so I will craft a special mechanism to hang it (once I get it framed).

Pretty cool, huh?