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Entertainment

Paint Your Pizza Lets You Paint A Pie And Order It

Artist Jonas Lund gives us a website that allows you to design your dream pizza and order it (for a steep $36).

First there was The Paintshop.biz, an web-based Windows Paint-like app launched last June by Swedish-born artist Jonas Lund. Motivated by a noble democratic aspiration—"quality art for affordable prices"—the website aimed to be a collaborative platform where online users could create together in real time, as well as sell and buy these creations at a fair, algorithm-calculated price.

It was a nice idea quickly overtaken by reality—out of all the paintings made (3,500), only 3 were actually sold. The sad truth is that even though everyone can be an artist, is doesn’t mean that everyone also wants to be an art buyer.

Lund went back to the drawing board, or paint easel, as it were, and re-thought the project. For the Eyebeam Annual Showcase last month, he re-launched the project as an altogether different painting experience. This time, he decided to go for a slightly different, and much more commercialized, canvas—a pizza.

Paintyourpizza.com is exactly what it sounds like—users get to virtually paint their dream pizza—from smiley faces to Ninja Turtles to Eiffel Towers—and directly order it online for $36. That may be an awfully expensive pizza, but it’s a bargain for art! Currently, Lund has a partnership with Ray’s Pizza in NYC but hopes to add partnerships with local pizzerias in other cities.

So far, more pizzas were sold than the paintings. "It's definitely been more fun," said Lund.