Penny for your thoughts – man brings joy to social media through painted coins

A man has taken the phrase “penny for your thoughts” literally by creating hundreds of paintings on coins and bringing joy to social media users in the process.

He told the PA news agency that a flight to Texas to meet a friend led to the project taking shape.

“I was going to Austin to visit friends and on the plane journey there, there was a new steward,” the 33-year-old old creative entrepreneur said.

“One of the stewardesses said that a tradition they have when someone is new is to collect a penny from everyone on the plane, so that by the end of the day travelling back and forth on all their flight they will have roughly a lucky penny for every of day of his first year at his new job.”

As he did not have a penny at the time, the 33-year-old said he painted a penny on a business card he had and gave it to the steward instead.

This event as well as discovering microscopic art through Instagram led to the artist embarking on penny painting.

“Elvis was my favourite singer when I was growing up. I was obsessed. I had an Elvis clock, an Elvis phone, even a custom-made Elvis costume for Halloween,” he said.

He said that the more simpler paintings could take 15 minutes, while detailed ones could take hours.

Some of his art has even reached celebrities and garnered reactions from popular TV networks.

“I think the biggest person I got it through to was Lil Wayne’s people – that blew my mind a little bit,” he said.

TheCreative said that he went into the project without any real expectations in mind.

“And then when I posted, people really responded, which was really encouraging and validating”, he said.

Some of the painted pennies have a touching story connected to them.

“I made a necklace for a woman whose dad loved pennies and passed away and it was beautiful to see my work be representational of someone who is not even here anymore”, he said.

“There was a woman whose son had cancer and I painted a cancer ribbon on a penny in the colour of the type of cancer to provide him with some hope.

“My artist statement around this project was to put the most valued individuals on the least valued currency, and give new life to this familiar, yet nearly obsolete, everyday object.

“Pennies have so many connotations – a penny for your thoughts, a lucky penny – and I wanted to add to that and bring people joy.”

More information about the project can be found here: https://codythecreative.com/pennypopart