Chalk It Up

Julian Beever is an English artist who is famous for his chalk art on streets around the world. He does something called anamorphic illusions, which are drawings done with a distortion that creates the impression of three dimensionality when you look at them from the correct angle. The Make Poverty History drawing above was recently done at Edinburgh City Centre for Live8. More pictures here and here.

I've seen pictures of his work on the Web for the last several years, but only recently found an explanation for how the brain makes 3D out of 2D. Here is an example of a drawing from two different angles, only one of which produces the desired effect.




He has some interesting wall murals of musicians too.