See a peanut portrait of Jennifer Lawrence – Believe It or Not

At Ripley’s Believe It or Not, you’ll see that actress Jennifer Lawrence is nuts – or should we say made of peanuts.

Ripley’s commissioned Orlando artist Mateo Blanco to create a celebrity portrait, but with two conditions: it had to be a person from Kentucky and the media had to be something associated with baseball. Why? The artwork will be used for an upcoming baseball-themed show at the Louisville Slugger Museum (located in Louisville) next year.

Blanco chose the combo of Lawrence (born and raised in Louisville) and peanuts – 9,658 Planters Cocktail Peanuts to be exact.

The artist spent 400 hours on the portrait, drilling holes to create the outline and then gluing peanuts into the wooden backing board – nut by nut. Blanco soon discovered the perils of working in peanuts rather than paint; you can’t eat paint. “I love peanuts, so as soon as I began, I ate like three or four peanuts for every one peanut I put in the portrait,” said Blanco. The finished portrait measures 78 inches by 55 inches.

This is the 10th Mateo Blanco creation in the Ripley’s collection. He’s a master of strange media, having used sugar, glow-in-the-dark pasta, balls of wool and even dog hair for his previous works.

“Mateo and his art are bigger than life,” said Edward Meyer, Ripley’s VP of Exhibits and Archives. “I truly had no idea what he could create to fill our criteria of having to be made from something associated with baseball. The end result is one of the most original pieces in our vast collection of unbelievable art.”

“We of course had to get it framed to prevent people from chewing on Jennifer’s ears,” added Meyer.