Architectural drawings have long used geometrical tricks to convey scale, depth, distance and other three-dimensional aspects of realities on two-dimensional surfaces. In a two-vanishing-point drawing, the artist aligns their ruler with a point on one side or the other and draws a line along the edge (or employs another modular straight-edging tool).

The same came be accomplished much more quickly, however, using this simple technique: pin a flexible string to both points along the horizon line and slide a hook along the center. The results will naturally be a bit less than precisely linear, but for many architectural artists a wavy line is typical or even desired (it gives the piece a less rigorously complete look).

Of course, it will only work for a traditional two-point perspective – in cases where the artist wants to include a third vanishing point (for instance, to emphasize verticals in looking up at a skyscraper or create a fish-eye effect) a straight-edge is still required. That, or a free-handed approach based on a picture, presumably the basis of the drawing above.

Worthy of a double-take twice over, these convincing wall artworks reveal imaginary depths and amazing arrays of color … all seemingly hidden behind dull peeling paint and inside innocuously crumbling facades.

While he does not say much about himself, 1010 is both a gallery and street artist  in Germany with a passion for surreal figures, geometric illusions and other visual trickery.

While the shapes are simple the shadows are incredibly complex, each layer built up with layers of color and light.

This particular series of optical illusion ‘holes’ spans both sides of his portfolio – smaller-scale works are framed and hung in galleries while larger-scale installations are set in rough exterior urban landscapes.

His other pieces that include characters like birds and snakes are of a similarly simplified style, but their cartoonish nature masks careful color and tone selection as well as time-consuming implementation.

Unlike a mirage on the horizon, this quaint little abode is entirely real, even if it seems to half-disappear through alternating wood and (seemingly) see-through slats.

A project by Phillip K Smith III (images by Stephen King Photography and Lance Gerber), Lucid Stead modifies an existing abandoned home shape that is straightforward and familiar.

Through its materials, however, the artist makes the building interact with the landscape in mind-bending ways, reflecting its surroundings via long horizontal siding and framed rectangular (faux) windows that slowly light up at night. The effect is a strange partial vanishing of the structure.

Of the work, the artist writes: “Lucid Stead is about tapping into the quiet and the pace of change of the desert. When you slow down and align yourself with the desert, the project begins to unfold before you. It reveals that it is about light and shadow, reflected light, projected light, and change.”

From the portfolio page: “Composed of mirror, LED lighting, custom built electronic equipment and Arduino programming amalgamated with a preexisting structure, this architectural intervention, at first, seems alien in context to the bleak landscape.  In daylight the 70 year old homesteader shack, that serves as the armature of the piece, reflects and refracts the surrounding terrain like a mirage or an hallucination. As the sun tucks behind the mountains, slowly shifting, geometric color fields emerge until they hover in the desolate darkness.” 

A fantastic feat of architectural trickery, this anti-gravity ante-room installation appears to hover in thin air and open up into nothingness. It sports a single point of contact with the ground below – a ladder propped against it, ostensibly placed to access the amazing space.

The piece was designed by Leandro Erlich (some images by Martin Argyroglo) of Argentina for an annual art festival in France, but the artist is known elsewhere as well for his vertigo-inducing work.

The ladder is the secret behind supporting this tenuous chunk of building, being much stronger than it first appears. A set of furniture stacked on it appears to be waiting to be taken to the top.

The Shaft was set in the Sean Kelly Gallery of New York and took visitors through a sideways version of an elevator void. Stuck Elevator at the same gallery gives one a peek at one of those jarring experiences one hopes to avoid for live.

Using mirrors, Erlich has also turned entire buildings on their side and made them into interactive urban playgrounds, as covered here previously and seen above.