I never realized that those stippled portraits in the Wall Street Journal where actually made by someone; I thought they were made through some kind of photographic halftoning process. My apologies to Noli Novak, the real-live human artist that creates them through meticulous pen and ink work. She literally rocks.

There’s a brief interview with her on NPR’s All Things Considered. It takes about 3 hours to her to do one 3 x 5 portrait. She trains new artists at the WSJ to keep the style uniform in addition to daily visual problem solving, For example, drawing George W. Bush is a challenge:

Everyone hates to draw Bush, including me, because he has a slight, very slight cross-eyedness and so, sometimes, moving eyes are just required because it would look like you made a mistake. With Bush you can’t do that…you have to stay as close as possible. Like, if you like at this drawing here, you can see that…something is just a little off…

Hee hee. Via BoingBoing.