No, they're not photographs! The astonishing pictures drawn by PENCIL

The Daily Mail ^ | March 15, 2012 | Kerry McQueeney

[Sensei Ern]

In his world, do all men have beards and moustaches? And the women have no “chest muscles”?

[Hot Tabasco]

Anyone think this photo resembles Richard Gere a few years from now?

[Daffynition]

*Chalk. It's a lost medium.*

[Reagan69]

I’m a photographer and I have expensive software to make my photos look like paintings or drawings... go figure !

[Vermont Lt]

Me too. But it doesn’t take two weeks to make them! Quantity and quality.

[Joe 6-pack]

"His beard seems to lose focus the further from the focal point, just as a photograph would. What an eye."

Technically, that would make his work "photorealist" rather than "hyperrealist." One pioneeer of hyperrealism was Chuck Close who realized that photos had that precise problem...one focal plane, and everything closer or further from that plane would be to some degree out of focus. When Close did some of his early works, he'd paint or draw from a photomosaic of his subject so that all parts of the subject were captured in a greater degree of focus.

There is a story that an ophthalmologist attending one of his shows who actually diagnosed an eye disorder in the subject of one of his portraits, of which the subject had been previously been unaware.

[JoeProBono]

[Sergio]

bkmk

[Revolting cat!]

That is a photograph, too!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Michelangelo was a hyper-realist. In his paintings you can see the detail on individual grains of wheat. The impressionist movement became popular when artists realized that they could not match the detail in photographs.

[citizencon]

The human artist has come a long way since the cave paintings Chauvet.

[Daffynition]

[Osage Orange]

artistic talent is not a requirement for success.

Are you actually saying the guy doesn't have talent???

[GOPJ]

Interesting post. Thanks for sharing.

[ClearCase_guy]

I think the point is that many people with less talent than this guy actually make more money. "You can throw paint???? Here's $1,000,000!"

Just because you're talented does not guarantee Big Money success. Talent is not a requirement for success.

[tioga]

Wow.

[ClearCase_guy]

This woman is looking at a painting that sold for $72M.

[Osage Orange]

Points are lost on me, now and again....

I can see them after the point..so to speak.

I think you are correct.....

[Osage Orange]

Well you have to admit...the artist anticipated the viewer would stand right there...and painted in her shadow.

[fso301]

Are you actually saying the guy doesn't have talent???

No. I'm saying he does up to seven of these per year for up to approx $7,500 retail of which he may only net $3,750. Contrast that with someone making millions for works most closely resembling a painter's drop cloth or child's kindergarden finger painting.