Optical Illusion Art Tutorial

It was art day, but as the afternoon began to slip away, I realized we did not have enough time for the creative painting project laid out in our art curriculum. I needed something simple. I needed something fast. With a little art enthusiast just itchin' to get his hands on a fresh sheet of white art paper, I needed something NOW! After scanning Pinterest for a PLAN B, I came upon this fun little project. As it turned out, it not only made for a great afternoon enterprise, it was a study in listening and direction-following skills.

To make an optical illusion drawing

In the center of a sheet of art paper, draw a 1" circle. Continue making larger circles around the first one until the entire paper is filled with concentric circles.

Place your hand in the middle of the concentric circles and trace both your hand and your arm.

Choose three crayons or colored pencils to use on the arm and three different crayons or colored pencils to use on the circles.

Starting with the center of the circles, color the hand portion of that circle with one crayon.

With a different crayon, move to the next outer circle and color ONLY the hand portion. Continue this pattern until the entire hand is colored.

Next, using one of the three color choices for the circles, color the center circle...only the portion that is NOT part of the hand.

Move to the next outer circle. Choose another crayon and color ONLY the circle portion. Continue to rotate all three colors until all the concentric circles have been colored.

And your optical illusion is complete!