Mike Stilkey is an artist from Alta Dena, California, who creates amazing works of art by stacking spine-painted books.

Mike had been drawing on book pages for a very long time, even publishing a book with 100 portraits painted on old book pages, called “100 Portraits”, when he realized it would be a good idea to paint on the book covers themselves.

His plan was to paint the books and then place them all against the wall, but he eventually got it in his mind that painting the book spines would be even better.He wasn’t very impressed with his first work, but when he presented it during the second Artist’s Annual group show, it got quite a lot of attention. Now his book paintings made Mike Stilkey one of the most respected artists of his generation

Photos by Dave Kinsey