"A busy day consists of two 'live' hedcuts, drawings that are due to run in the next day's paper..... Each intricate portrait can take up to five hours to complete, with countless little dots. But in an emergency, artists can produce one in as little as two hours, with more lines and fewer specks....
'Because we are essentially tracing the photograph, a lot of people think it's not a big deal,' says [Hai] Knafo. 'But it is.'
'We have our little tricks,' says Noli Novak, who has been with the Journal since 1987. 'A portrait with less dots will take less time.'
'People at the Journal don't even know there's a whole department doing this,' says Novak."
-Never before have I read a piece about working commercial artists that, instead of making me either envious or awed, makes me instead suspect of their entire line of work! And yet here we are.
Hai Knafo and Noli Novak? Are these names anagrams for something?
I had sort of always assumed some computer program or printing trick did these?
I thought that they were carved into soap and then ink-stamped into each copy. I'm beyond disappointed.
They had an exhibit at the ArcLight in L.A. with all of those guys' little headshots. It was kind of underwhelming.
Yeah, I guess Koons doesn't really count as a working commercial artist... right?
I swear Knafo's "hand" has loosened up and the images aren't as old-school-engraving-tight-good as they used to be, but it's probably my eyeballs. Doing stipple-drawings is very meditative.