Townsend pizza artist uses cheese, tomato sauce and pepperoni as his palette

Artist Brian Clossen uses mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce and pepperoni as his color palette and pizza dough as his canvas.

With help from "Rusty," his favorite shiny metal fork (which actually isn't at all rusty), Clossen carves and shapes homemade dough into characters ranging from Bugs Bunny to Darth Vader to Sonic the Hedgehog.

At Little Italy Pizzeria, a take-out shop at 325 Main St. in Townsend, Clossen turns customer requests into edible artwork. The 16-inch pizza creations he creates cost about $20, depending on the design.

He doesn't use stencils for his pizza art, which has been called "pizzart." He first draws the request out on paper and then works his artistic magic with the dough.

"It's just me and Rusty," jokes Clossen about the fork which gets it name from an episode of "Family Guy," an adult animated Fox sitcom.

The pizza art came about by accident a few months ago at the Townsend shop owned by brothers Michael and Anthony Elentrio. They also own Little Italy Pizzerias (LIPS) in New Castle and Middletown.

In April, a co-worker's sister was going to a cheerleading competition at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and asked if Clossen, a longtime employee, would make her a pizza that looked like Mickey Mouse.

The pizza art came out so well, it was posted on a Middletown-Odessa-Townsend Facebook page and requests began pouring in. 

"People started coming up with their own ideas," Clossen said. "I haven't had one yet that I couldn't do. I can draw anything and turn it into something you can eat." 

Clossen, long interested in drawing and arts and crafts, has always been creative. As a child he was a huge fan of professional wrestling and liked to make wrestling belts out of cardboard and aluminum foil.

 "I used to steal all my mom's shoe boxes," he said.

As an adult, Clossen started exercising his creative muscles with pizza ingredients. 

"My mom used to yell at me for playing with my food. Now, I get to play with a lot of people's food."

The best part of the pizza art, he said, "is drawing it up."

Pizza shop owner Anthony Elentrio admires Clossen's artistry and doubts his skills can be taught. 

Elentrio tried his own hand at a Mickey Mouse pizza, but he wasn't happy with the results.

"My Mickey Mouse looked like an angry Ronald McDonald," he said, chuckling. 

It takes Clossen a good hour to make the pizza art, but that's not counting sketching out the drawing the night before.

Clossen likes a challenge. He recently did a hamster pizza for a child's birthday, who wanted a real furry animal as a pet.

"She didn't get the hamster, but she did a hamster pizza. That was supposed to cushion the blow, I guess." 

He did an Adam West as a Batman portrait in pizza after the actor's June death. Darth Vader and the Death Star pizzas have been popular. Other creations have included Buzz Lightyear, Maui, a character from the Disney movie "Moana," a pirate, the symbol on a Mustang car, a John Deere tractor, a Panda bear and emoji symbols.

 "I really like it when they come up with their own ideas," Clossen said.

A raccoon was another recent favorite. "The customer didn't want to eat it. They wanted to shellac it. I said, 'Take a photo and then eat it.'"

Everything on the pizza, which is sometimes more like tomato pie with bread sticks, is edible.

Clossen won't use food dyes, but he will decorate with pepperoni, parmesan cheese, a little pepper and oregano, garlic-infused olive oil and, maybe, some black olives, not too much.

"It has to taste good," he said.

Clossen draws out the design and then trims the dough with a pizza cutter. He pokes the dough all over with "Rusty" the fork so the dough doesn't puff up too much and ruin the design.

He then puts the pizza in a 525 degree oven to let it set up. At this stage, there's no tomato sauce or cheese.

It takes about 8 to 10 minutes to bake. Then, the pizza comes out of the oven for tomato sauce, which Clossen carefully paints on with a spoon, and sprinkles of mozzarella cheese and a few other extras, if needed. It goes back in the oven for another few minutes. 

"Basically when I take it out [the first time], it's done," Clossen said, "but I put it back to melt the cheese," 

Pizza art orders must be submitted several days in advance. Send a message to the Little Italy Pizzeria Townsend shop's Facebook page and shop owner Anthony Elentrio will get back in touch.

Elentrio said he isn't sure if the pizza art business will grow, and right now, only Clossen can do the art.

"We're just a little guy, a little Mom and Pop shop operation," he said. "Brian's doing this as a service to the community. That's how we look at it. We're just regular guys." 

Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 or ptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter @pattytalorico