Think again. The above portraits are not charcoal or pencil drawings, in fact they’re not even drawings. They’re carvings. Philadelphia artist Alex Queral revives old phonebooks by carving faces of celebrities and historical figures into them through a tedious process that typically takes several weeks to complete.

Why phonebooks? Queral says this about his work and medium:

“In carving and painting a head from a phone directory, I’m celebrating the individual lost in the anonymous list of thousands of names that describe the size of the community. In addition, I like the idea of creating something that is normally discarded every year into an object of longevity.”

Click here for more of Queral’s work.

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