Today’s optical illusion is another wonderful painting from Mexican artist Octavio Ocampo. His surreal and metamorphic paintings often can be interpreted in multiple ways. What do you see first when you look at the image below? Do you see some flowers and a butterfly or the face of a beautiful woman? I always see the woman first. Does that say something about my view of the world?
To see another great painting from Octavio Ocampo, be sure to check out Ecstasy of the Lilies.
When Jim Warren was in high school, he began painting and selling artwork. Since that time, he has become a “Living Legend of the Art World”. In 1981, he painted the cover of the Grammy Award winning cover for Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind”. Regarding this limited edition print titled “After the Storm”, Jim Warren had the following to say:
I was never one to simply paint a mountain scene as it is, although I have occasionally, I generally prefer to put a little twist to it such as the roaring thundering snow of an avalanche becoming a herd of roaring thundering horses.
The transformation of the avalanche becoming a herd of horses is an effect that Jim Warren frequently incorporates into his fine art paintings.
Michael Murphy is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA and sculpture training from Kent State University and a MFA from the Art and Technology Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. One of his latest anamorphic installations titled Perpetual Shift consists of 1,252 wood balls, paint, and braided fibers. The video shows how it looks from the preferred viewing angle and then moves to the left to reveal how the sculpture is actually constructed thereby revealing the illusion.
The four spheres (which the artist calls baubles) appear to be moving. If you move your eyes rapidly around the image, you will find that the motion effect is enhanced.
A larger, single bauble version of this image can be found below.
Some people say that a photograph is worth a thousand words. I think that today’s photograph is worth quite more than that. This photograph was taken by wildlife photographer Michael S. Nolan at the Austfonna ice cap located on Nordaustlandet in Svalbard, Norway. Despite what you might think, the photograph has not been edited or retouched in any way. This is exactly how this ice cap looked when Michael snapped the photograph in 2009. He had the following to say about this image:
When I took the image early in the morning on July 16, 2009 from the bow of the National Geographic Explorer I was struck by the unmistakable likeness of the face of a woman crying. In fact once my mind locked onto the face it was hard to see any other pattern in the ice cap. I was moved to photograph this particular waterfall several different ways with a couple of different lenses. It was one of the best examples of a human likeness I have ever witnessed in nature.
Is this actually Mother Nature crying about things that would concern her, such as climate change… or is this just a photograph that causes our brains to assign human-like attributes to it?
Looking through some of the categories, I realized that I haven’t posted any tessellation patterns this year at all. One of my favorite designs from graphic designer Nikita Prokhorov is the following tessellation that features interlocking blue and red owls. The horizontal branches that run through the pattern and act as a perch for the owls are a very interesting element and add to the overall design.
John Pugh creates large public trompe l’oeil murals that are meant to look like realistic scenes. In a personal artist statement, John says that:
Public art is of great interest to me; providing me with a sense of purpose as it is a very powerful form of communication. It can link people together, stimulate a sense of pride within the community, and introduce the viewer to new ideas and perspectives.
The mural below shows a couple of uniformed police officers interacting with two different sets of individuals.
Here is what the side of the building looked like before John installed his mural. It was a very drab and boring gray brick wall with some very unimpressive landscaping placed in front of it.
View the full post to see see some early sketches created by John while he was planning out this mural.
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