Since the beginning of computer graphics, we have been driven by the pursuit of realism. Mimicking the details and nuances found in the real world has been a hot topic ever since the first shiny sphere was rendered on a framebuffer -- a piece of computing machinery worth, at the time, more than your average house. However, over the years, research began to grow in an offshoot of computer graphics devoted to an entirely different approach -- an approach aimed at making things look un-realistic. This area of research is now formally known as Non-Photorealistic Rendering, or NPR for short. The fact that NPR is extremely difficult may defy your common sense. We have been able to fool people by the billions into believing a computer generated image is real. We are not, however, nearly as successful at fooling people into believing a computer generated image was painted by a human. While working on feature extraction techniques, I came across some ways of generating charcoal, pastel, and oil painting effects derived entirely from photographs.