Toronto Artist Chews Out Gum Blondes

TORONTO (Wireless Flash) – Chew on this: A Toronto-based artist is getting a bite of fame by creating paintings of famous blondes out of chewing gum.

Since 1996, Jay Kronenwald has been creating his “gum blonde” paintings by chewing up 500 pieces of gum and placing them on pieces of plywood.

Some of the females who’ve been chewed up and spit out by Kronenwald include Avril Lavigne, Paris Hilton and his favorite muse, Britney Spears.

Each painting takes 40 hours to complete – not counting chewing – and he gets about $2,000 per piece.

So far, all of his paintings have been done from pictures and Kronenwald says that’s because he wouldn’t want to subject a live model to “sitting that long” while he chews.

Kronenwald hopes to exhibit his favorite “Gum Blondes” next year but one of his Spears’ works will be given away next month at the Gummies, a Los Angeles-based awards ceremony honoring bubble gum musicians.

However, now that Spears has given birth, Kronenwald is no longer interested in gumming her up and has set his sights on Jessica Simpson.