The Red Ferret Journal

Trompe l’oeil – or trick of the eye – art can be absolutely extraordinary when produced by a master. Here are some of the most amazing demonstrations of the art around.

John Pugh produces ‘monumental’ scale art on walls, buildings and interiors which are so realistic it sometimes takes your breath away. Astonishing stuff.

Ron Francis is a universally acclaimed master of the art and it shows. This window with children playing outside in a garden may not be real, but it is truly delightful.

Julian Beever creates astonishing pavement art which seems to spring up from the ground with a vivid 3D power that is simply mesmerising.

Chinese artist Liu Bolin has already run afoul of the Chinese authorities because his work is considered subversive, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s brilliant. The invisible man indeed. More here.

For a fabulous collection of stunning trompe l’oeil images from France (with before and after shots via the precedente/suivante links) take a look at the trompe-l-oeil.info site. This example features a cinema frontage in Cannes. I could spend hours on this site just browsing while oohing and ahhing. Stunning stuff.

Just when you thought you’d seen it all. In the epitome of recycling, Taiwan based ASUS has recreated the Mona Lisa – using old PC motherboards and computer chips. ASUS built its reputation on motherboards and their Eee PC line of netbooks and nettops, so no surprise they’d use these as part of this wacky attempt at art.

This surreal collage has its home in the Taiwanese lobby of ASUS. Wonder what their “crazy idea” guys will come up with next?

[Photos from Flickr]

Tags: gadget, asus, mona+lisa, recycled+mona+lisa, asus+mona+lisa

Masterpiece Art lets you draw pictures using masses of LEDS and plug-in glowing wires. You can choose from a range of backgrounds and decorate them to your heart’s content. It doesn’t need any special tools either, just a blank canvas and some creativity. You’ve got that haven’t you? US$79.99

They also have an LED chess set if that’s more your thing.

Hi-Tec Art is the Worlds first LED stick in Tec Toy. With this Masterpiece model you can use LEDs to create art! Just stick in the LEDs and they light. With Masterpiece you can use the backgrounds supplied to create LED accented art or freestyle your own art.

Tags: gadget, masterpiece+art, led+art, push+pin+leds

Macessity make a range of Mac-styled accessories including this Slimkey V2 monitor stand. It’s made from powder-coated aluminium, has four USB 2.0 ports and neatly hides the large or small Apple keyboards while supporting your monitor. Looks alright too.

Macessity make a few other nifty Mac bits, including this Mac Mini hider, the Stand By Mi, mini stand and the NX Stand , an all-in-one laptop and external hard drive stand. US$64.99

This stand is our third addition to this category based on the feedbacks, wish lists, and “nice to haves” from the first two. Perfect in every way: slim, nice and flat, beautiful design, AND one of the most asked for features, a side access USB2.0 powered hub. You can use this for any Mac, there will be no excuse to delay your must have stand now.

Tags: gadget, usb, macessity, slimkey, mac+accessory

If you’ve ever been nostalgic about those bright yellow school buses we all rode, take heart! Now they’ve been recycled into yellow Bus Stop Shelters. Made from recycled parts of old school buses that would otherwise have ended up in the scrap yard, these unique eye-catching shelters even look like a school bus, at least part of one.

Located in Athens, Georgia (not far from Atlanta), pieces of decomissioned buses from 1962, ‘72 and ‘77 were welded together, along with seats from an old city bus. What a creative way to recycle. I’ll be it’s a great conversation piece for bus riders!

Bust Stop Shelter 12′x7′x10′ Athens, Georgia 2007, West Broad and Alps Bus Stop. The Bus Shelter is made from 3 old school buses, years: 62, 72 and 77. The seat is from one of Atlanta’s decommissioned city buses.

Tags: art, bus+stop+shelter, school+bus+recycling

You know those photos of you and the family on the beach you keep on your desk? So old school, man. What you need, desire and must have is a new DNA Mini Portrait of the one you love, carefully embedded into a high grade glass frame and bolted to your forehead dropped onto your cubicle desk for all to admire. Just $199.00/£134.00 plus shipping. And if you really want to go to town how about gifting a Fingerprint Portrait to your Mom at the same time? So she can check who you are when you visit. $190.00. Beautiful artifacts from the 21 st century of lurve.

Be part of whatever the FAIL phenomenon is with these FAIL/WIN stamps. Bonus points if you get the stamp on their forehead and then take the picture. US$19.99 for the pair.

Of course if Failing, isn’t your thing, you could always try the Succeed Blog.

Never let another FAIL or WIN go by unannounced in your world. Get this set of two self-inking stamps, one FAIL and one WIN. FAIL stamp is in bright red, WIN stamp is in black, both print in solid, all-caps Impact font

Tags: fail+stamp, win+stamp, fail+blog

The story of Voltron is long, with many a winding turn but that doesn’t mean you can’t get back to its renaissance roots with the Vitruvian Voltron tee shirt. US$17.99 from ThinkGeek.

Voltron with Vitruvian-style da Vinci-esque drawings printed all over the front (but not the back… the back is plain) of a sand-colored, 100% cotton t-shirt.

Tags: voltron, thinkgeek, vitruvian+voltron

The always amusing xkcd webcomic has boiled down a few quintessential movies into easily digested movie narrative flow charts. Why not print them out and present them at tomorrow’s sales meeting?

These charts show movie character interactions. The horizontal axis is time. The vertical grouping of the lines indicates which characters are together at a given time.

Tags: xkcd, movie+narrative+charts

Clockwords. Beautifully crafted, addictively entertaining, tremendous fun. What more do you need to know? To play – type in long words as fast as you can, to shoot down nasty spiders intent on doing you harm. Fab. [Via Metafilter]

Classic Cinema Online is a glorious collection of olde tyme movies in all sorts of genres for your amusement and education. Some are from the 70’s, some from the 30’s. Some in-between. All for free, no sign up required, distributed via Google Video. Isn’t the Internets a sharing place?

Concert Vault features over 3000 live concerts by some of the great and the good, recorded and re-mastered over the years by various people. It’s free to listen after registration, so of course there’s advertising all over the place, but that said, there’s some choice stuff on here. Makes a change from YouTube anyway and there are downloads available for a price too. Nice.