It took just a couple minutes for Ellen DeGeneres to assemble some A-listers at the Oscars, get a picture snapped, share it, and break Twitter. Artist Heather Rooney takes a little longer to recreate the selfie seen 'round the world using colored pencils, but a time-lapse video of her process is well-suited for the Internet age.
Rooney describes herself on YouTube as a 20-year-old college student who is majoring in art. She says she's self-taught in her photo-realistic technique which relies on Prismacolor colored pencils. Her speedy drawings of everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Harry Potter attract millions of page views.
With a blank sheet of paper in front of her, Rooney starts by roughing in the heads of the stars who gathered around DeGeneres on March 2. She then comes back to the Academy Awards host and it's mesmerizing to watch her hand dart about and turn Ellen's face into a "photo."
From there she moves to the photographer, Bradley Cooper, and then Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, a slice of Jared Leto, Lupita Nyong'o's brother Peter, Angelina Jolie, Nyong'o herself, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, Julia Roberts, and, finally, Channing Tatum.
"The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening may have beaten Rooney to the drawing board, but at least she can add her work to the countless recreations keeping this particular Oscar memory alive.