86/365 - Escher No. 2

86/365 - Escher No. 2
Originally uploaded by ddiemont

So this was my second attempt at recreating a M.C. Escher classic. I was always drawn to his art as a child because his art involved math and I was very into math as a child as well... Add to that the fact that he is Dutch and I'm part Dutch, and you've got a winning combination.

So last night I picked up one of these Bamboo Tablets and it seemed like the perfect subject for this type of shot. I wanted to replicate Escher's famous drawing of a hand drawing a hand, which is drawing the hand that is drawing it... and hold up, i'm getting confused.

So here is how this one is accomplished. This is essentially a combination of 2 shots... the background image is of the Bamboo tablet with me drawing on it. The second shot I used was of my hand over a piece of black poster board in the exact opposite direction... if you really wanted to I suppose you could use the same shot as the original, rotate it 180 degrees, but then your lighting is going to be WAYYY off. (well, 180 degrees off).

So now you have the 2 pics to bring into photoshop. (well i brought them into aperture first to correct some white balance issues, etc.) So as the background layer I use the bamboo shot. Next I copied the hand from the other shot (using the quick selection tool and some edge refinement) and I pasted that into its own layer in the bamboo shot.... Next I transformed the hand that would be coming out of the bamboo such that it was the proper size and rotation and positioned properly.

Next I took the eraser tool, and erased off the excess pieces of my arm in the arm/hand only shot, such that it ended just before the edge of the tablet's "active area". Once this was done I took the brush tool, turned the opacity to 50, gave it a pretty low hardness value and created a shadow under my arm and hand. I mad the shadow come out a little more the further I got to the right to give a greater sense of depth.

Next I created a gradient mask over my arm so it disappeared into tablet (while on the layer, choose the add a mask and create a gradient on that layer which fades from the start of the shadow area to the edge of the pad.

next I took the Pen tip in the Bamboo shot and copied and pasted into a new top level layer. this way the pen tip on the regular shot appears to be on top of the "drawing of my arm"

and finally, take the arm/hand layer and apply a "reticulation" filter to it. This is what gives the arm coming out of the tablet a "pointillism" feel... which is a nod to m.c. escher.

thanks for stoppin by,
Derrick