I am working on a new two-dimensional variant of the Müller-Lyer illusion… You may be surprised to know that the Müller-Lyer illusion isn’t only linear: it involves plane geometry too! In fig. A shown below, the ends of the blue and red collinear segments, arranged in a radial fashion around a central point, delimit two perfectly concentric circles. However, for most observers, they seem instead to define a large ovoid that circumscribes another one, slightly eccentric (Fig. B). This comes from the fact that the red segments seem to stretch towards the lower part of the figure, while the blue segments seem to stretch towards the upper part of the same. As you can see, in this variant comes also into play the “neon color spreading” effect. In fact, a bluish inner oval-like shape appears within the black arrow heads (Fig. A), though the background is uniformly white.
Op art
Bamboozle your mind with illusions
Bamboozle your mind with Super Optical Illusions – my book of brain boggling artworks is a clever gift for curious-minded children. Find hearts that beat in the middle of the page and snail shells that spiral off into infinity. Enjoy a preview of my eye popping illustrations below and look for many more in Super Optical Illusions – available now!
As an author, designer, and researcher in the field of visual perception and creative thinking, I like to combine art, psychology, cognitive sciences, and recreational logic to test people’s ingenuity.
I have created or adapted most of the illusions contained in my books. Many were created and perfected during my workshops which are held for the benefit of children and adults alike (more information at: http://www.archimedes-lab.org/prospatelier.html).
Try to solve the optical illusion puzzles below without looking at the answers.
The Football
How To Draw Incredible Illusions, a cook-book for artists and designers
After the success of my book “Drawing Optical Illusions“, I was commissioned by Imagine Publishing for a new tutorial book project titled “How To Draw Incredible Optical Illusions” [You can get this book from Amazon US and Amazon UK]
My book dissects the most fascinating and confounding black and white optical illusions, patterns and tiling, explaining in a concise fashion how they work, how to design and create them, and how to personalize and play with them to your heart’s content. With accessible yet fascinating text and workable samples, this intriguing art ‘cookbook’ is appropriate for graphic designers, teachers, artists, art lovers and the curious who enjoys contemplating how the mind works and how the eye sees. Continue Reading
Super Optical Illusions
The outside world is mediated through our sense organs, so what we perceive and feel are just representations of reality. The only things we cannot doubt are our inner emotions: we cannot doubt that we are happy, sad, in love, or in grief, when such states apply. The only other thing we cannot doubt is… to doubt!
Super Optical Illusions (aka Xtreme Illusions 2) is a children book project I enjoyed to make three years ago for the publishers “Carlton Books” [amazon.co.uk], “National Geographic Kids” [amazon.com] and “Ça m’intéresse” [amazon.fr]. It looks really fantastic and my pictures are large to enjoy the details! It is a family book that will encourage the young reader to explore the mysteries that lie right inside our own minds (including the key scientific concepts of perspective and perception).
Book Cover
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Flying Gothic Bat
A new kinoptic design taken from my book “Extreme Illusions 2”.
Kinoptic designs are optical illusions where a static image appears to be moving due to the cognitive effects of interacting color contrasts and shape position. The essence of Kinoptic Art is actually to play with our optic nerves, to surprise and create the illusion of colors, dimensions or motion. Op Artist uses a palette of elements like blank spaces, XOR spaces, interspaces, interferences, space tiling and geometric patterns. Precision is also important in my creative processes: a small change in an Kinoptic Art picture can strongly modify or negate a visual effect.
The bat in the picture below seems to flutter, move and/or expand. Moreover, if you stare for a while at it and close your eyes, you will see a smaller white bat appearing to be painted on the insides of your closed eye lids.
You can see more samples of my kinetic optical art on Smithsonian Magazine.