Jessica pointed me to a website of an artist called Phil Hansen from Washington. He creates art in an unusual way, like the two photos you see below. First one is a simple portrait of Daudi, a boy living in Uganda created using Star bucks coffee mugs. The second one is little more complex. The author stated that 2×4′s were lined up to look like framework of a house, and used a blow torch to burn in the image of a fire fighter. If you walk around this piece, the picture is only visible from one point of view, like the Cardiff Bay Barrage installation. This is what Jessica originally wrote:

“Hi! I love the site, keep up the good work! I was looking at an internet site that I love and they referred me to website of artist Phil Hansen. It’s worth looking at the pictures he has on display, it’s some very cool stuff. The link I give specifically is an optical illusion, but some of the others work too, I think, since they are photos made up of other things. Check it out, you’ll see what I mean!”

Art Installation,

(20 votes)

Last night I was browsing the web for some new illusions. Here and then I feel obligated to post few of my own, not only user submissions. There are still over hundred emails in my gmail box to be approved, so don’t worry if your’s hasn’t been posted yet. They come in rate where it gets hard for me to follow. Still, those that are the best, get higher priority, so please send only true and awesome ones ;)

For today I prepared a gallery of some new (and awesome) sidewalk chalk drawings. I am aware there are already hundreds in belonging category, but I felt there weren’t any new ones lately, so I uploaded these. Those of you that haven’t seen anything similar before, will have hard time believing me when I tell you that escalator below is nothing but a “mere drawing” on a concrete floor. The chicks just positioned themselves in the correct position and gave additional reality to the whole set. If you go inside the article (assuming you are viewing this from the homepage), you will see bunch more photos taken at different times of day from different angles. Amazing!

I have couple more new chalk drawings on my laptop, similar to Julian Beever’s art work, and will post them soon! If you noticed, I underlined keywords in this text (as usual) and connected them to the best of sidewalk art, so be sure to check all of them (links in this article) and decide which one’s your favorite!

3D Chalk Drawings,

(31 votes)

These cartoon-ish illusions seem to get more popular as days go bye. The newest submission was done by Ryan Oksenhorn. I really enjoyed myself observing this funny looking dude trying to escape his Escher prison. If you notice, again we have reference to M.C. Escher’s Ascending Castle.

From my experience, Escher is the first thing that comes on a creative artist’s mind when wanting to implement illusions in his work. The author of this flick is Goo-Shun Wang, who has done a masterpiece, in its nature similar to our previous Journey to a World of Illusion video. Wait for it to load, then click play and enjoy it! Feel free to share this clip on your homepage, but please include authors name and his website. Not to mix things, Goo-Shun Wang is the creator, and Ryan is the guy who sent this. Ryan added: “First of all, I love the site! Keep it up! I found a very well made video illusion. I liked it and hope others do, too!”

Browse through many more illusionary video clips in our “Videos Category“.

Impossible Objects, Video Illusions,

(21 votes)

If you ask who’s Da Man behind this funny Google Earth discovery, its Edmar B. dos Santos from Houston, Texas. Beside thanking me for my nice homepage, he added: “I found this very interesting place in Google Earth. It is a man shaped lake in Sao Paulo state Brazil and the coordinates are: -21° 48′ 18.53″, -49° 5′ 23.92″ Its pretty funny, considering its same principle as those crop circles we had while ago, or Cardinals baseball memorial. This isn’t a crop circle in Google Eart, but I bet there was some prankster cropping involved. My comment – what happened to your manhood Lake-man?

Google Earth,

(13 votes)

Artist who goes by the name DigitEL sent me this incredible photo. My guess was that it happened by accident, but the effect is extraordinary! DigitEl said the same thing: “Here is one that kind of snuck up while photographing the red foliage hedge. I have always taken variations of a view with poles, wires, and other shadows included, but it was not until looking at the captured image… made me suddenly grin at the play between tree trunk shadow and the red hedge. Enjoy!” Here and then I post an illusion that is truly great. In its meaning as well as the plain beauty of the photo. Well, this one has it all! For more shadow illusions check those National Geographic Camels, Frisbee shadow and airport Basketball Player. Also don’t forget to see this cool video by master Shigeo Fukuda. If you are social bookmarking type, please help us gain popularity by adding this illusion to you del.icio.us, fark, technorati, reddit, stumbleupon or digg bookmark. Thanks!

Multiple Meanings,

(31 votes)

Joseph Mohmed created something very simple, yet astonishing. By opening the picture full size, and scrolling up and down very fast, I managed to see a scary black widow spider. This is probably only one effect among dozens. Be careful not to stare at it for too long, or your head may start hurting. You can easily get hallucination effect as well. Let’s give Joseph a chance to describe it:

“I was messing around in Photoshop a long time ago and got this by making a half black/half white canvas and using the twirl filter a bunch. There’s quite a few effects you can get by doing different things, though looking at it is already weird as hell. Try moving your head around while looking in the center, or keeping your eyes in the middle for 15 seconds then looking at a wall and blinking repeatedly. Oh and good job with the website and all that, I got the new widget in my Dashboard”.

Multiple Meanings,

(32 votes)

Jacek Szydłowski, the guy who sent that awesome Google Earth anomaly, also posted this animation few days ago. He said: “Hello. Another illusion I found on net. This time you will see something that looks like women body but it is NOT!! See for yourself.” Just look at the image on the left, it will change in few seconds and reveal the truth. I couldn’t believe first, that this beautiful figure isn’t representing one fine looking woman. Boy, was I shocked! Hehe, if you open the picture full-size, you will see bigger version of this deceiving evil photo. It almost strange as Droste effect. About illusion of the day widgets and gadgets, Macintosh version is working now (please comment if it’s true), and you can get the new 4.0 version from here.

Windows widget is also fixed, but we are waiting for Yahoo to approve the new version. Should be up in no-time, probably tomorrow. I’ll keep you updated. In the mean time enjoy our archives, and stay tuned for more updates this evening!

Animations, Multiple Meanings,

(32 votes)

Update 27.4. 2007 – Mac Widget 4.0 is now released, so be sure to re-download it. Also I corrected the illusions below, it should work now. Open it full size to see the effect.

Thanks to Michael Tughan, both Yahoo and Mac Widgets are fixed. It was a minor glitch, that occurred due to blogger changing photo path on their server. I sent the updated versions to Yahoo and Apple, and as soon as they approve them (read – tomorrow), I’ll post another update with direct links to download them. Thank you for your patience. As I said before, I would highly appreciate if you could spread the word, and inform your friends about this coincidence.

In the meantime, Rachel van der Meer sent me this picture of town center of Antwerpen in Belgium. It is classical turn-color illusion, like the one from few days back. Open the picture full-size (or it won’t work). Just stare at the center dot until it turns to color, and then wait again for the black-and white photo to show (you will see it in color like in previous examples). Stay tuned for more widget news…

Afterimages, News,

(18 votes)