Artist 'ties herself in knots' using only a paintbrush

SMEDEREVO, Serbia, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Armed with makeup brushes and pencils, skin artist and illusionist Mirjana Kika Milosevic gets to work on her own torso, sketching elaborate knots and making chunks of her flesh disappear, earning her videos millions of views on YouTube.

The self-taught makeup artist, 36, from Smederevo, an industrial town 70 kilometers south of Belgrade, now earns enough through her art to dedicate herself fully to it.

Milosevic started several years ago by painting a hole on her thigh and posting photos on Instagram - leaving viewers puzzling over whether it was real or not. After huge interest she decided to do more.

"Ever since I was a kid, I liked to draw on unusual surfaces and avoided drawing on paper," she said.

Her illusion "Knotted Body" has received more than 12 million YouTube views and she has created illusions for Disney and the horror film character Chucky. (Reporting by Branko Filipovic; Writing by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)