Pixel drawings cover Charlotte on interactive map ‘Wplace’

CHARLOTTE — A new online art project is covering the world in pixelated drawings, and hundreds of designs have already filled Charlotte.

Wplace is a new website that features a map of the entire world as its canvas; anyone can join in by drawing art one pixel at a time.

The idea stems from a Reddit April Fools’ Day event in 2017, called Place, where users filled a blank canvas with pixel art. That event turned into an online phenomenon, with wars over territory and thousands of users banding together to protect their works.

Wplace takes the concept and expands it to the whole world. It just launched within the last few weeks, and it already has drawings from The Queen City to Queensland, Australia.

We saw the map on Tuesday and noted drawings on Charlotte landmarks, including the Carolina Panthers logo (not on top of Bank of America Stadium, however), the American Airlines and Delta logos at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the Charlotte FC logo (actually on top of Bank of America Stadium) -- someone even drew the Channel 9 logo on our station.

The map has plenty of space left to make your mark, even if you might find more blank canvas in Ellerbe than in Gastonia.

You can join or just take a look at the drawings near your home at this link.

(If you need help creating pixel art, you can use this page to convert an image to pixel art with a plan to put it on Wplace.)

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