You might think artist Ben Heine has Photoshopped himself into his own pencil drawings, but he’s actually standing on top of them. Much like the mind-bending optical illusions produced in chalk by sidewalk artists, these are flat drawings that just seem like they’re three-dimensional.

The Belgium-based multidisciplinary artist mixes photography and drawings for the series ‘Pencil vs. Camera,’ one of his best-known projects. The drawings seem to pop out from the page when viewed from a certain perspective, making it look like the artist is interacting with his own creations.

“I just make art for people,” says Heine. “I want them to dream and forget their daily troubles. I used to write poems many years ago, I want to convey a poetic and philosophical meaning into my pictures, each new creation should tell a story and generate an intense emotion, like a poem, like a melody.”

Another part of the series blends Heine’s drawings with landscape photos so they match up. The artist selects a location, draws a fanciful illustration, and then takes a photo of the combined results.

At first, you’re not sure what you’re looking at. Are these strange portraits, their subjects seeming to disassemble before your very eyes, wire sculptures? They are incredibly three-dimensional, bursting with vitality and movement. But they’re actually digital creations, the result of a collaboration between graphic designer and illustrator Ayaka Ito and programmer Randy Church.

The Scribbled Line People project was inspired by the wire sculptures of Rachel Drucker as well as the Flash paintings of designer Erik Natzke, and it seems as if you could reach out and touch them.

Ito and Church took snapshots of people and used software like Flash and Photoshop to deconstruct them into series of flowing lines that retain a high level of realism while also suspending reality.

In effect, these human forms seem to be broken down into pure energy, revealing the kinetic forces that flow within them as well as their innate fragility.

On their harried way through the Toronto subway, commuters passing through the new Bayview/Sheppard station might glance at what looks like a scribbled mess of black paint on the floor and walls and wonder if it was the work of some vision-challenged vandal. But turn a corner and see those sketches from just the right angle, and suddenly playful shapes like umbrellas and clocks appear to be floating in mid-air.

Each of these 24 hand-drawn images are part of an installation by contemporary Canadian artist Panya Clark Espinal, optical illusions that require the viewer to stand in once precise location in order to see the object depicted.

“These images act as beacons, drawing the viewers along various paths of movement,” the artist writes on her website. “Depicting everyday objects and simple geometric shapes, the images are rendered in an uncommonly large scale and in unusual orientations, allowing one to interact playfully with them as one moves through the space.”

Known as ‘anamorphosis’, this type of art has been around since at least Leonardo da Vinci’s time, when he created a work called ‘Leonardo’s Eye’. Hans Holbein the Younger incorporated the technique into his painting The Ambassadors, which features an anamorph skull in the foreground that looks like some kind of unidentified hovering object until viewed from an acute angle.

Of course, the most famous contemporary version of anamorphic art is the sidewalk illusions of chalk artists like Julian Beever, who masterfully trick our eyes into seeing things that aren’t really there.

(Check out our complete collection of 100+ Works of Creative and Geeky Art and Graffiti.)

3D street artists are great, but their ever-popular sidewalk chalk art isn’t the only 3D art of its kind. Inside a home, on the outside of a building or even in a swimming pool, the illusion of three-dimensionality can transform a space, giving the appearance of depth, texture and place in a mythical or fantastical fashion.

Eric Grohe creates surprising illusions of far-reaching spaces out of otherwise flat surfaces. In some of these images of his works, it is difficult to see what is within the picture he created and what is in the real foreground. Though not strictly photorealistic, his plays on perspective feel compellingly real from a distance.

This mystery artist clearly has an eye for classical and medieval scenes. His paintings both enliven these otherwise conventional interior spaces, creating amazing conversation pieces and great play spaces for children. If anyone knows who this is, please add information and links in the comments!

3D pool art is a bit more on the playful side of 3D residential art. Composed of custom tiles, these creations can be purchased in standard patterns or made to order for specific pools. Do you know of other amazing 3D illusion art or know who the mystery artist is? Feel free to add relevant links in the comments below!

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