Pen & Ink, Collage Optical Illusions

The below photo is of artist Noli Novak creating a self portrait of herself using the stipple technique first created by Kevin Sprouls working for the Wall Street Journal in 1979.

Read the following from the Smithsonian Institute: National Portrait Gallery

The Wall Street Journal's resistance to photographs is legendary. "I always thought that one word was worth a thousand pictures," retired executive editor Fred Taylor told a reporter on the occasion of the Journal's one-hundredth anniversary.

But in 1979, while the Journal was in the midst of a makeover, artist Kevin Sprouls devised a technique for illustrating the paper that did not disrupt its "gray and wordbound" appearance. The stipple, or dot-laying, technique produced pictures that resembled the engravings on stock certificates and currency. "I've always thought it was a pretty good match for the Journal," says Sprouls. "They're like fine engravings."

© Noli Novak 2004

Noli Novak has been creating these pen and ink drawings since 1987 and her art is "acclaimed for it's intricate detail and emphasis on capturing likeness." She is also an accomplished collage artist as seen here using bits of magazines and paper to create amazing watercolor like images.

© Noli Novak 2004