Artist makes detailed, giant portraits on the frozen Baltic Sea in viral videos

An American painter who braves Finland's bitterly cold weather to create portraits on enormous floating pieces of ice in the Baltic Sea has been going pretty viral lately. He swims out to the Baltic Sea and uses charcoal and soil in a spray can to paint the surface of enormous blocks of ice. David Popa, 29, makes these gigantic yet fully detailed portraits. Because these portraits will always either sink or float away, each of them must be made in about four hours. Popa faced several difficulties while making the Fractured series of ice portraits because he had to do so in the depths of the bitter Finnish winter. On Facebook, he says, “I soon realised this is extraordinarily difficult to do as the ice floats can alter their positions dramatically in only a few minutes. (...) The reality though was I was in pure bliss, knowing just how rare these conditions were and how blessed I was to be at the right place at the right time to have this work come to life.”