Shanghai-based Hong Yi or 'Red' as she likes to call herself is known for her unusual and imaginative portraits. Her previous masterpieces include a sketch of Chinese film director Yimou Zhang created with 790 pairs of black, white and grey socks and one of basketball superstar Yao Ming painted with - you guessed it - a basketball! Popular Hollywood actor Jackie Chen was portrayed with chopsticks, while British singer/songwriter Adele's portrait was created with melted candles.

Hence it came as no surprise when on June 17th, to celebrate the start of World Cup Soccer, Red unveiled a portrait of her three favorite soccer stars - Argentina's Lionel Messi, Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo and Brazil's Neymar, that was created by dribbling a paint-covered soccer ball.

The artist who says she loves to paint but not with a paintbrush, began by dribbling with a ball doused in yellow paint for the background and outline of the players. After that came the red, blue and yellow to represent their respective team colors and the black for the hair. Then the most difficult part of all - adding their distinguishing facial features, for which she used a neutral grey. The end result as you can see, are portraits that any artist would be proud of.

And while Hong Yi describes her painting skills as 'ok' and her dribbling skills 'questionable', after seeing the results, most would agree that she is being extremely modest on both counts!

Resources: designboom.com,ohiseered.com,artnet.com