A mind-blowing guide for the logical mind! Create your own optical illusions and amaze your friends once you’ve learned these techniques.

Gianni Sarcone dissects the most mystifying and magical illusions, revealing the logic behind their patterns and tiling, and explaining how they work. He delves into the importance of blank spaces, negative space, interferences, repetitive geometric textures, and more—all part of the palette an "op artist" uses to produce powerful illusions and visual surprises. Draw curves that diverge and converge, diamonds that vibrate and flicker, hypnotic spirals, "ghosts" and ambiguous figures, and other astonishing illusions. You'll even learn how to produce the "impossible": perplexing images of things that could and should not exist in the real world—but can come straight out of your imagination to live on the page. And illustrating all the instructions are Sarcone's own magnificent pieces. They include recent and revisited optical effects, plus demonstrations and tips for inspiration. Visual perception is created through the interplay between the eye and the brain. Optic art and optical illusions exploit the boundaries of this interplay to produce confusing, amusing, or discordant results. Visual artist Sarcone (Hidden Picture Puzzles) explains basic types of optical illusions in this cookbook-style guide including: size distortion; ambiguous figures; hidden or suggested figures within ­camouflage; impossible figures; and suggested movement. Readers may use the techniques introduced here to attempt optical illusions in any medium they wish. Most of the illusions presented are geometric, abstract, and black and white, though ambitious readers could try incorporating color into their designs. VERDICT Commercial artists and designers can use this guide as a reference book, but it will be delightful for anyone who has ever wondered how an optical illusion works.
- Library Journal