How Pictures Are Done
The portraits or "hedcuts" that appear regularly in The Wall Street
Journal are pen-and-ink renderings. They are drawn on a daily basis and
often under the pressure of a deadline by five staff artists. The source
material is usually a photograph and is scanned and printed to a size
three times larger than the size it appears in the paper. The artist
uses a hard lead mechanical pencil to trace the facial shapes and
features from this photographic reference onto a piece of Strathmore
plate surface, 1-ply paper. The pencil drawing is then mounted on
illustration board and the artist then develops the details and tones of
the face by drawing patterns of dots and lines with a technical pen.
(Normally rapidograph tip #1 is used with the help of #0 for
adjustments.)
When the artist feels that the drawing is complete, it is scanned and
reduced to the size that it will appear in the paper. After making
needed adjustments, a final scan is electronically sent to the plants
that compose the paper.
Drawing the portrait at a large size allows the artist to capture the
details and accuracy of the person's likeness. In the reduced version,
the areas of dots close up and become darker, yielding a richness in
tonal variation. The art reproduces well on the newsprint and
compliments the understated but sophisticated format of the Journal.
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