Assignment 2: Copy a Masterpiece!

The Instructions:

Any masterpiece -- it's your choice. Pick one of your all-time favorites to copy, or find an obscure artist and "discover" him/her. That's a lot of territory! Even abstract expressionism can work! ; )

Begin with a blank canvas. Create the image from an art book or other reproduction. If you prefer working a realistic scene, I recommend the traditional: still life, portrait, figure study, or landscape.

Use the art tools: paint brush, pencil, air brush, fill bucket, eraser, etc, and use as many of them as you can in this creation. Try to use them all!

You are not allowed, however, to scan anything for inclusion, and try to avoid filters and selections for now, even if you know how to use them. (Oh, maybe just a little, if you insist!) But try to be purist here!

Tablets are allowed. (Hey, how about an assignment where you have to draw with a trackball! lol!)

The goal here is not to try to out-do Painter, a great art-tool emulation package, but instead to attempt to see how far you can take this metaphor in Photoshop. Are digital art tool emulations ready to replace analog yet?

Plus, it's a great way to get to know the capabilities/limitations of the package, and lets me see your level of skill in the traditional arts of drawing, painting and design and color, and how they translate to a digital medium.

--KPT Saint

The Results:

Photoshop: paintbrush, pencil, airbrush, paint bucket, smudge.

Original painting info: "The Twins or Castor and Pollux", Jean Cocteau, Oil on Canvas, 1952, 28 3/4 x 23 5/8 in. (73 x 60 cm)

A digital emulation of Vasili Kandinski's Composition VIII (1923), using only Photoshop paint primitives (well, maybe a few selections and paths...).

Copy of Modigliani's "Head." Used 6 different layers to create the final, and mostly the pencil, paintbrush, erase, and smudge tools. Drawing with a potato wasn't that bad!

Still life copy of Cezanne's painting starting with a blank screen. Created using the paint tools on Adobe Photoshop.

Well, three of the boats are missing, but I learned a lot.


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