Panda painted onto single hair

Chinese micro-painter Jing Ying Hua has painted an image of a giant panda on a single human hair.

The artist took 10 days to create the mini-masterpiece using a single rabbit hair as a paintbrush.

Vistors to a Chinese gallery viewed the painting through a microscope at 50,000 times magnification.

Panda painting

The image was magnified 50,000 times

Other micro-painters include Russian artist Valeriy Dvoryanov who creates oil paintings of famous people on poppy seeds and grains of rice.

His biggest work to date is 2003's picture of the Titanic, on a 2-mm-long mineral sliver.

One of his works is inscribed with the words: "I have loved the sun all my life and always wanted to paint the sun" in letters a fraction of a millimetre wide, painted using a sharpened human hair.

And in 2002, Micro-artist Willard Wigan spent months designing, sculpting and painting a miniature figure of Muhammad Ali fighting Sonny Liston on a pin head.

His collection includes a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Tower Bridge and Jesus - each fitted into the eye of a needle.

It also features a minute Statue of Liberty and a boxing ring containing Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield.