This is a series of shots from Japan of the rice patties farmers have turned into giant works of art by carefully planting different colored rice plants. Cool, but I went to a farm once and splashed around in a mud puddle for ten minutes before Old MacDonald finally told me it was pig shit.

This is called "tanbo art" (田んぼアート) or "rice paddy art". There are no dyes to create the different colors and hues. Instead, farmers used various rice strains in their tanbo canvases.

Often, hundreds of villagers work together to plant the rice by hand and create these massive works of art. While planting, different areas of the rice paddy are roped off, so people know which type of rice to put where--kind of like painting by numbers.

Impressive. Quite possibly even more impressive than the time I used weed killer to draw a penis in my neighbor's yard. Get it? Because he's a dick. Just kidding, he's actually a really nice guy and I regretted doing it almost immediately I was just bored and drunk. Whew, it feels good to finally get that off my chest -- thanks for listening (but if you tell anybody I'll kill you).

Hit the jump for a bunch more.

Thanks to Nick, who tries to make rice art whenever he orders Chinese takeout but it usually just looks like a box of rice saturated with soy sauce.