True still lifes: Masterworks of bodypainting

Johannes Stoetter's images have created a sensation online: still lifes, but only "still" as long as his model doesn't move.

This is art as camouflage, in which models are painted to blend into their background, or to impersonate nature.

By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan

Parrot

Stoetter's disguised-body images have gone viral online, in a global game of "Spot the Human."

Parrot

A detail from "The Parrot."

Autumn

Stoetter told CBS News' Elizabeth Palmer that he was attracted to the art of body painting as soon as he conducted his first experiment:

"I immediately felt this was my way to do art. It was much more intense than just painting on canvas, probably because the object is alive."

A Living Canvas

Johannes Stoetter made his name in the psychedelic world of competitive body-painting.

A Living Canvas

He told Palmer that when he works on a model he falls into something like a trance: "It's a different state for me when I paint."

A Living Canvas

Sara, one of Stoetter's models, is facing a full-body session that will last most of the day, with Stoetter darting back and forth in ferocious concentration.

Angel Fish

Self-taught, Stoetter won the world bodypainting championship in 2012.

Annual Rings

Stoetter is from Sterzing, a picture postcard town high in the Italian Alps, surrounded by a forested wilderness where he loves to hike.

"Nature was always a strong thing for me," he told Palmer. "I spent part of my childhood in nature, my early childhood especially. I think that inspired me very deeply."

Stone Beach Step

Hidden on a stony beach.

Pineapples

Fruit art.

Bookshelf

Judging books by their painted covers.

Chameleon

The chameleon at left turns out to be two models -- sisters, one on top of the other, on a bench with a painted branch.

Old Wood

Now, complete strangers ask Stoetter if they can model for him. But in the past he's used friends and family, including his father (left), brothers and sister.