It's easy to mistake the drawings by 25-year-old Aria for reality. Like this one of a catfish.
Hyper-realistic drawings are always intriguing, but this Japanese artist has a clever trick to really bring off t he illusion.
The self-taught artist has created a name for herself on social media for creating head-turning illustrations of animals and objects that look like they're about to pop off the page. Her latest piece captures the whiskery form of a catfish whose tail magically escapes the boundary of the paper.
Despite its three-dimensional appearance, Aria's artwork is, in fact, two dimensional. It's just masterfully drawn to look as much like the subject as possible. She does this by carefully sketching the object, and then filling it with layers of coloured pencils. This technique lets her recreate light and shadow, which in turn makes it seem as though each drawing is solid and three-dimensional.
Aria also employs another trick to enhance the illusion of her artwork. After completing the drawing, she cuts out an upper section of the silhouette from the paper. This small touch is what fools our eyes, making it seem like her illustrations are real objects and creatures merely sitting atop or leaping off the flat paper.
Keep up to date with Aria's latest drawings by following her on Twitter.
Today's OGN Sunday Magazine articles
Magical Trees: Ancient trees provide a suite of ecological services to forests, as well as sustaining the entire tree population’s ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.
Free Way: A bridge will help humans and lions co-exist in the only major Western city that is home to lions. Los Angeles is breaking new ground in infrastructure for big cats.
Mother Earth III: In memory of Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, here's the third in our series of his Ten Love Letters to Earth.