You hold a piece of parchment, stone, or clay in a direction you choose.  A flash of light appears, and an image in the style of an oil painting apperates onto the material.  This image takes the likeness of the scene in which you faced.

The image is permanently inscribed on the material, but can be removed with either fire or scraping with a sharp tool.  The image is in faded color, and if the image was captured in darkness, only vague details can be made out, as if it is being seen by a creature with darkvision.