Optical Illusions Art Collection #2

Tricky Gray Boxes

This is a demonstration of how the exact same shade of gray will look different depending on what color the background is. Another slightly less apparant effect of this picture is that the big gray box in the upper left looks darker than the bix gray box to the upper right, because it is closer to the black square in the lower left. Use your hand to cover up parts of this optical illusion experiment and you'll notice how the shades of gray are affected!

Although this seems like a fairly simple illusion, there are some basic principles that are used in other illusions. Hopefully, with this example you'll be able to learn the basic principles of gray shading, and then when you see it in use on another illusion, you'll understand it even better. That's why we created this illusion, sure it may not be the most fun illusion in our entire portfolio... but hey, those boxes really do appear to be different shades of gray, based upon their surroundings!

How could you use this in real life? Well, if you were on the beach and wanted to appear very tan as compared to those around you, it would be better for you to place your beach blanket close to the fair-skinned people, or even better, close to the white sand. Or just get a white beach blanket, and not a black beach blanket!