Drawing Basics: Checkerboard illusion explained

Checkerboard illusion

One of the best ways to understand how value is perceived is by looking at how it can be used to create illusions.

There is a popular video on youtube showing a pretty cool illusion involving a scene similar to the one you see to the right. The illusion is one where a light tile is moved over a dark one and they turn out to be the same value.

If you haven't seen the illusion click on the link below to watch.

Checkerboard illusion video clip

Let's see how it is done.

Beginning Drawing Posts: Just the very basics

I have put together a small list of links to previous posts from this site to help those who are new to drawing find relevant articles quickly.

This is a list of links prepared for those just starting out and who want to learn the basics of charcoal drawing.

Painting Basics: Selecting and editing the scene in a plein air landscape

Plein air, editing a scene

I went plein air painting with a student of mine a couple of weeks ago. After we finished we took a look at each other's work and commented as we usually do. One of the comments for this painting was that the painting looked nothing like the scene in front of me which, of course, was true. I picked the scene because I liked the silhouette shape created by a few of the trees. That shape made by this grouping of the trees was what I wanted to focus on and all the stuff that was unimportant to me in the scene just didn't make it into the painting.

Today, I thought we would look at how to select what is important in a scene then edit the information to design a composition that we like. I want to show that you do not need to include everything in a scene when painting it.

Let's take a look.