llustrator Randy Glass began creating his The Wall St. Journal “hedcuts” portraitures, often of celebrities, while freelancing there in 1998. Many of the “original pen & ink drawings he created are privately owned by his celebrity subjects”.
These iconic drawings use a variation of the traditional stipple method of many small dots of varied sizes in conjunction with minimal line. They are designed to emulate the look of woodcuts from old-style newspapers and engravings on certificates and currency. The phonetic spelling of “hed” comes from newspapers use of that term for “headline”.
Glass attended the Ringling School of Art and Art Center College of Design and in an interesting sidenote, he supplemented “his tuition by drawing five-minute portraits of people at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World”.
