Dressed in a torn sleeveless t-shirt, sweatpants, and an ominous looking gas mask, the talented mind of Jessica Dunegan swirls with creative ideas for turn flat pictures into surreal pieces of art with depth, texture, and shine. Jessica’s selection of media is far different than most creators of surreal portraits.

I would like to tell you why many artists, who like me, have painted portraits and landscapes in oils on canvas, worked with acrylics, watercolors, and pen and ink drawings, have turned to the art of gourd carving.

These stunning color portraits, produced by the U.S. Office of War Information during World War II depict the role of women in the US war effort. All of the images were shot on 4x5 color transparency film by Howard R. Hollem and Alfred T. Palmer during 1942 and 1943 and were turned over to the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division in 1944. They are seen here with their original captions.

Mary Jose Cristerna, a Mexican known as The Vampire Woman, poses for the public to take portraits of her during the annual Venezuela Tattoo International Expo in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, January 29, 2015. Tattoo artists from around the world are gathering for the four-day event that also includes under the skin implants and body piercing. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

In this Monday, March 16, 2015 photo, Syrian refugee Samira Helal, 17, who is two months pregnant, poses for a portrait at inside her tent at an informal tented settlement near the Syrian border, on the outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan. Nearly 3.8 million Syrians have fled their country and are now registered as refugees, according to the U.N. Most face increasingly desperate circumstances. (Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP Photo)

In this November 21, 2015 photo, Camila Lopez Rivas, 14, poses for portraits on a beach in Havana, Cuba, as an assistant lifts the train of her dress to make it look like its flying in the wind. Camila lives in Miami, the daughter of a truck driver who left Cuba when she was a baby. She doesn't remember the island, but wanted to return for the photographs and videos that Latin American girls typically take for their 15th birthdays. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

An infrared portrait from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope which shows generations of stars is seen in this undated NASA handout image released February 14, 2013. In this wispy star-forming region, called W5, the oldest stars can be seen as blue dots in the centers of the two hollow cavities (other blue dots are background and foreground stars not associated with the region). Red shows heated dust that pervades the region's cavities, while green highlights dense clouds. (Photo by NASA/Reuters/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian/Handout)