While most artists use paint and brushes for their work, Nathan Sawaya creates masterpieces using LEGO.

US-born Sawaya constructs works of art made entirely from the small Danish building blocks much-loved by children.

But this isn't just child's play, the 33-year-old's work sells for around £5,000 and he has been dubbed the Picasso of Lego.

In fact, his works have proved so popular he has been able to give up his $150,000 day job as a Wall Street lawyer.

The Manhattan-based artist certainly needs all the spare time he can get as his pieces require hundreds of hours of painstaking work. A recent 10-foot model of a speedboat, for example, required 250,000 bricks and took ten 18-hour days to finish.

Nathan discovered his love of the medium when he was given a box as a Christmas present as a child.

Starting with the simplest structures that many of us never got beyond - the car, the house, the castle - he next managed to create a life-sized self-portrait.

Since then, he has gone on to produce stunning Lego creations that range from simple black cats through to a mini-scale version of New Orleans.

Other works display Nathan's artistic imagination to the full:

'Reflection' is a haunting still-life of a man gazing at his own image in the mirror, while 'The Yellow Art of Brick' depicts the unsettling image of a man tearing open his ribcage to make his insides spill out - his innards are entirely composed of Lego bricks; could this be Nathan himself?

Other impressive creations include a 7ft pencil, several vases of flowers and a realistic globe. He also creates mosaics of popular figures and his Lindsay Lohan is an amazing piece of Pop-Art.

Three years ago Nathan was taken on by Lego as the company's in-house Master Model Builder. He has also exhibited at the Lancaster Museum of Art in Philadelphia.

Nathan says: ``I never imagined I could actually work with Lego in a job - it just seemed like too much fun.

``Now I create anything people commission me to do: animals, objects, people - there is nothing you can't make out of Lego.''

But the artist is humble about his own talents: ``I create things anyone could make using their own Lego.''

MUST CREDIT PHOTOS BY
REX FEATURES
Story by Dean Murray