TAMPA - When visitors pass by the studio of Marc Brechwald, many times they assume he's a photographer.

"I'm like, a pencil artist," he said with a smile.

The reason visitors think photographs is that much of Brechwald's work looks like realistic black and white photos.

What they're saying:

"They have to get close up, because they almost don't believe it's a pencil drawing," Brechwald said. "A lot of times, people are curious as to what takes longer and why did this one take you like 90 hours versus this one that took you only 30 hours, and so it allows me to kind of talk about the process and what goes into creating a photorealistic pencil drawing. It's a great way to start out a conversation."

Brechwald uses only pencil, but a variety of pencil sizes. He also says erasing is just

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