San Diego, CA -- An artist who paints larger-than-life wine bottles is popping the corks of wine lovers and art collectors alike.

Thomas Arvid is a self-taught painter who captures half-full bottles and glasses of wine, corks and corkscrews in photo-realistic oil paintings.

Arvid says he started with red-colored objects until he stumbled onto wine bottles 10 years ago and his works started selling off his easel before he could finish them.

Now, his originals sell for $30,000 and he has a waiting list of commissions for the next four years.

Arvid believes people are drinking up his art because he's removed the formalities of wine and it captures the how people really enjoy wine -- in his words, "not with fruit pushed up against the bottle."

Arvid is currently on a U.S. book tour for his new coffee table book "Arvid: Redefining the Modern Still Life" (Thomas Arvid Fine Art Inc.)

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