This Sandman Will Hypnotize You! No Sleeping Possible!

This Sandman Will Hypnotize You! No Sleeping Possible!

Credit:  Core 77  6/1/15 Using a Steel Ball, Motorized Magnets and Sand to Draw CNC Zen Gardens. Combing your Zen garden with a rake is so 15th Century. So inventor Bruce Shapiro’s Sisyphus machine ditches the rake and uses steel balls, untouched by human hands...
“Coloring meets funhouse mirror magic” –  A Review

“Coloring meets funhouse mirror magic” – A Review

The following review of Morph-O-Scopes Kits appeared  in the September 2010 CoolMomPicks. We learned of it only recently! The review is reprinted here with permission of Liz Gumbinner, Publisher, Editor-in-Chief of CoolMomPicks.com. “I’m not going to lie...
Hole-Punched Flipbooks – A Clever New Approach

Hole-Punched Flipbooks – A Clever New Approach

Acknowledgement: COLOSSAL Art, Design, and Visual Culture by  Christopher Jobson on April 13, 2015 Artist Scott Blake, known widely for his barcode art, recently began experimenting with the humble hole puncher. By punching different patterns that shift from page to...
Optical Illusions: Hololens, Pepper’s Ghost, First Valentine

Optical Illusions: Hololens, Pepper’s Ghost, First Valentine

It’s been quite the week for optical illusions in our family! First of all, two days ago Microsoft launched its ultra top secret product – Hololens. My daughter, a software engineer at MS, said she has been working on this project for more than two years!...
Gifts from Brusspup, Our Favorite Optical Illusion Guy

Gifts from Brusspup, Our Favorite Optical Illusion Guy

It’s an old visual trick: precisely parallel lines on a transparent sheet slid over specially striated images create the illusion of motion. But Brusspup always delivers fresh fun. In this new video he makes a ring transform to revolving balls and change color!...
DIY Christmas Trees

DIY Christmas Trees

Culled from one of my favorite blogs – Design Swan – posted 11 Dec 2014 “Christmas is not only a wonderful time to celebrate love and joy with your family and friends, but also a great time to let your creativity flourish. There are plenty of...
Ive got it!

Ive got it!

Oh, I wish I were able to afford everything Jony Ive serves up for Apple, but at least I get to drool over products and concepts he and Apple newbie Marc Newson will be concocting for our appreciative palates. Legions of us are terribly grateful for their exquisite...
Vanishing Church …Now You See it…Now You Don’t!

Vanishing Church …Now You See it…Now You Don’t!

“Reading between the Lines” is an installation created by architectural duo Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenberghare. Located in Limburg, Belgium, the structure  resembles a rustic old church covered with clapboard or ship lap siding. When seen from the right high...
There are People Hidden in Your Basement!

There are People Hidden in Your Basement!

And Animals in Your Kitchen Cabinets! Find them! Get them out of there. Get your kids to help! And you’ll discover a fun, cheap, visual training activity this summer. Inspiration is everywhere! French artist Gilbert Legrand  turned everyday household objects...
Negative and Positive: Optical Illusions and Anamorphosis

Negative and Positive: Optical Illusions and Anamorphosis

I adore negatives that are also positives – anything that can be seen more than one way. I grin like a fool at two-toned silk fabric, figure/ground logos, mowed baseball fields, vacuumed-patterned rugs, and even double entendres like Flintstones’ slogan...
Bacteria Art – This Could Go Viral!

Bacteria Art – This Could Go Viral!

OK. OK. I hear the groans.  (Giggle)  My brain can’t resist playing with words the way Zachery Copfer plays with bacteria – fancifully, lovingly.  Microbiologist-turned-artist, Copfer has had a long, close, I might even say symbiotic interaction with...
Hidden in Plain Sight – Rain-Activated Art

Hidden in Plain Sight – Rain-Activated Art

WEST SEATTLE — (Brett Cihon’s article paraphrased below.) Peregrine Church, 21, has created art with a different twist. The art appears only when it rains. Church uses a biologically friendly superhydrocoating to paint inspirational phrases on sidewalks. The...
Optical Illusions for Ray-Ban by Brusspup – Awesome!

Optical Illusions for Ray-Ban by Brusspup – Awesome!

The first video below – Brusspup’s Rubik’s Cube – went viral this year. I know because customers from all over the world who loved and bought Morph-O-Scopes from me at the Ventures Store in Seattle’s Pike Place Market were excited to...
Optical Illusion Dance

Optical Illusion Dance

It’s universal, our delight with things optical illusion. On 8 марта (March 8), International Women’s Day in Russia, these ladies performed a clever little optical illusion number to the delight of the entire audience. Click the photo to see the video. As...
I Wish I Had the Time These Guys Have!

I Wish I Had the Time These Guys Have!

I’d just sit and watch the clock all day! I’m even fantasizing about flying to Dubai to do it. That’s where Stockholm-based designers Bastian Bischoff and Per Emanuelsson are exhibiting this utterly brilliant timepiece during Design Days Dubai 2013....
Love in the Shadows

Love in the Shadows

For this woman (and I’m not alone) receiving chocolates and a dozen long stemmed red roses on Valentine’s Day is a total yawn.  So conventional.  No effort involved.  But some lucky gal’s guy (or guy’s gal or guy’s guy or gal’s gal)...
Love is an Optical Illusion

Love is an Optical Illusion

Ambivalent feelings this Valentine’s Day? Read the black letters then read the pink to see the opposite. Ambigrams are extremely clever exercises in graphic design that play with optical illusions, symmetry and visual perception to create images which can be...