Need to decorate for Halloween on a shoestring? Check out these optical illusion assemblages by artist James Hopkins. His series of compositions named “Vanitas” are comprised of household objects arranged on plain bookshelves to form images of skulls. What a clever job of seeing forms of objects (freed from their everyday use). To Hopkins, teeth…
Three days ago, the new, easier-to-navigate OOZandOZ.com website went live! And two Saturdays ago, my daughter got married. As the only person with a station wagon, I was the default go-fer for cases of wine, ladders, seating, etc. What fun! What exciting beginnings! I couldn’t squeeze blog posts into the schedule, but boy did I…
Joseph Egan and Hunter Thompson are first year Graphic Design Communication Students currently studying at Chelsea College of Art & Design in London. Exploring the relationship between graphic design and architecture, they learned about master artist Felice Varini‘s amazing anamorphic work – a form of optical illusion that lures the viewer into a unique, immersive…
Have to entertain a group of middle school kids? Believe it or not, rebuses can wow ‘em! I was a new art teacher at an affluent private school in Virginia. Three of us were assigned lunch duty to keep order in the cafeteria and police the area. Well, I remembered how bad it felt as…
August 1950. A magical month for 8 year-olds at the Jersey Shore. We got 25₵ each day to spend anyway we wished, on comic books (10₵) or candy or games at the arcade! Our best fun adventure, though, was crawling under the boardwalk to find fallen treasure – coins or small gumball machine prizes –…
Gutsy enough to send corrections to a dictionary or encyclopedia? What do you think of people who do? Are they just “smarty pants”? Well, meet Smarty Pants Me! Decades ago I sent a note to Webster’s New World Dictionary about their strangely illustrated abacus. As a young girl – I believe I was about two…
The dictionary defines “redux” as “restored” or “brought back”. Here are two little stories about Easter eggs redux. Easter Egg Restored “It” happened the last time my daughter and I decorated eggs. “It” was completely my fault. I accidentally crushed one of our creations. Oh my goodness! Such tears from one little girl! I felt…
Optical illusion lovers, there’s a delightful surprise behind Seattle’s Safeco Field ballpark. If you’re beside the chain link fence, it looks like someone randomly shoved ping pong balls into spaces. But seen from a distance, the fence merges into an ingenious black and white benday mural. Be ready to do a screeching U-turn like I…
Sharing what delights me - Optical Illusion Fun, Left & Right Brain, Beloved Toys, Art Lessons & Clever Stuff, with maybe an occasional gripe thrown in.
