Woodturner Alan Phillips used thousands of coloured pencils to create a beautiful donut sculpture. This satisfying YouTube video has over 7 million views!
Over the last couple of months, satisfying videos on YouTube, Tik Tok and Instagram have become extremely popular. For example, ASMR, slime and resin making videos can gain millions of views. Furthermore, people have work and school off due to COVID-19, which allows them much more time to surf the internet for a distraction.
To create this donut, Alan recycled his old pencils by tirelessly fitting them into a round mould. He then poured resin into the mould, letting it set before woodturning the mould into a smooth, donut sculpture. Millions of viewers will agree that the process of smoothing these pencils into shape is hugely satisfying.
However, there is a wide range of positive and negative comment reactions to the video. Some people are surprised at the utter pointlessness of the sculpture, shocked at how time consuming it must be. Others are absolutely entranced by the sculpture, using the video as a way to calm themselves. What do you think? Is this video a waste of time, or a beautiful distraction?
If you loved this video, here is an even crazier woodturning video of someone making a guitar out of pencils!
Social isolation is motivating artists to produce painstakingly difficult pieces of art out of what they can find around the house. For more news on art projects during quarantine, read about what Banksy’s doing during lockdown.
