The False Mirror

My assignment last week was to use the tools and techniques we’ve been taught in our Computer Art class to make our own interpretation of a famous painting, I choose Rene Magritte’s The False Mirror.

Reference images

First thing I did was to bring both images into Photoshop and place one on-top of the other.  I placed the cloud layer on Multiple so I could position it.

I created a circle Marquee selection and filled it on another layer, so when I wanted to make a mask, I’d be starting off with a perfect circle.  Whenever I wanted that same size and shape selection, I could just Ctrl click that layer for that same selection.  It came in handy later.

Placing a Mask on the eye layer I used a Hard Edged Brush at 100% Opacity to Mask out the whole circle except for the pupil and that highlight/reflection.  Placing the cloud layer underneath it and removing the Multiply blend mode.

Using a Soft Edge Brush at about 25% Opacity I began bringing in the edges of the Mask closer in, I felt the Reflection was distracting, so I filled it in to see what it would look like.

I didn’t like the lack of reflection either, so I ended up using that layer with the circle on it to make a perfect circle selection of the original eye before the mask and copied the pupil.  I then rotated the pupil and then added a Mask to it to get rid of all the extra stuff I didn’t need.

Using that Soft Edged Brush to blend in/out those edges again.

Ended up moving the cloud layer around to find a more appealing position, then copied it and added it in front of the eye Layer to create some depth.  Using a Mask to delete all the blue sky and leave nothing but the clouds.

From there it was all about blending in the blue into the darker/green edges of the eye and painting in the rest of the foreground clouds.

-Jesse

“Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.”  -Leonardo da Vinci