An artist has created a self-portrait - using a staggering 5,500 pennies.

Mary Nugent spent a year collecting the �55 worth of coppers for her extraordinary piece.It then took a further month for the 47-year-old to painstakingly assemble all the pennies into the five-feet-tall portrait.

Ms Nugent, from Streatham, South London, said: 'I saved my change and also had lots of people out gathering them for me.'I then took lots of different photographs of myself and eventually chose one I could break down into five different shades.'I used chalk to draw the picture onto some MDF and then started filling it in with the coins, some of which had been outside for five months to darken.'

Miss Nugent said completing the artwork was a 'real challenge' as she had never undertaken anything like it before.'Every time I placed a few pennies I had to walk back 10 feet to see if it was right and I didn't have much space to work in,' she said.

'Initially the coins were stuck with white tack and when I was happy everything was in the right place I stuck them all individually with glue.'I was really nervous about what kind of reaction it would get but I've been overwhelmed by the positive response.'

To read the complete article, see:Copper load of this! Artist creates self-portrait using 5,500 pennies(www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1283055/Artist-Mary-Nugent-creates-self-portrait-using-5-500-pennies.html)