WOVEN OPTICAL ILLUSIONS BOOK

About the book: Have you ever been intrigued or bamboozled by optical illusions? Have you ever wondered how you might begin to start to weave something like that? Whether you answered an emphatic YES, or are even vaguely interested, then we’ve the book for you!

Woven Optical Illusions is a book covering optical effects from two shafts to 24 shafts. It includes familiar structures like plain weave, twills, tied weaves such as summer & winter and taqueté, double cloth, and also ones that might not be as high in your weaving lexicon, such as beiderwand, shadow weave, deflected double weave, Atwater-Bronson lace. There are also designs which are already familiar to weavers, albeit used in a different way, such as herringbone.

But you will also learn how to create optical effects such as 3-dimensional depth including shaded columns, bulges, tumbling blocks, shadowing effects. Tilted lines that converge and diverge will play with your sense of what is straight. Colour can be used to enhance depth, create additional colours or just change its own appearance. We’ll also show you how to create shapes and colours that aren’t physically there in the cloth!

Inspired by artists including Victor Vasarely, M C Escher, Bridget Riley and many others, this book will take you from inspiration and design development through to Technical Notes. Explanations on the illusions, along with detailed drafts and profile drafts help you to create your own illusional cloth. You’ll be able to learn some background as to what causes the effects in the first place.

A gallery of other weavers’ illusions is included. Plus, there’s an alphabetical glossary of all the illusions in the book plus a bibliography of weaving, art and science sources for further reading

STOP PRESS: Also available as an e-book from Crowood Press

Crowood: https://www.crowood.com/products/woven-optical-illusions-by-stacey-harvey-brown-katharina-kronig.

Blackwells: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9780719843396.

ERRATA – Sadly, despite our very best efforts there are a few images which need replacing.

You’ll find the replacement images here. They can be cut out and pasted over the original images in the book.

 

 

 

A lovely solid book, the hardback is pleasant to handle, with glossy pages in the style of a coffee-table book, ideal for a book which invites frequent, regular reference. This is so much more than a coffee-table book!

The fascination and enthusiasm of the authors is apparent and engaging throughout the eight chapters. Their combined years of experience in weaving and teaching are evident in the detailed and systematic presentation of each type of illusion, including history, some scientific and mathematical background, and plenty of woven samples, including samples from the authors’ own practice as well as from other textile artists. It seems that many familiar weave structures can be harnessed to create illusions.

How to use the structure of the weaves is covered in detail with drafts and drawdowns, many in colour, demonstrating the influence of colour choices on the illusive effects. A very helpful final chapter on Technical Weaving Notes that is referred to throughout the book, allows the reader to learn, or remind themselves of, the weave structures described. 

The patterns, designs and illustrations offer an enthralling source of inspiration for many a happy hour of weaving exploration – an exciting addition to the weaver’s bookshelf. 

Kath Gerrard

The Journal for Weavers, Spinners & Dyers. www.wsd.org.uk

Woven Optical Illusions explores a variety of optical effects through the medium of weaving. Suitable for weavers of all experience levels, it explains the basic principles behind the illusions, and shows how to create the effects in selected weave structures to give a wide range of examples and possibilities. Projects are taken from concept through weave design and development to a woven result. With over 500 illustrations, including detailed drafts and images, this fascinating book is designed to whet the appetite of anyone who is interested in optical play.

Eugene Textile Centre

This thick book of no less than 207 pages is packed with optical illusions for the real enthusiast. The five substantive chapters successively discuss optical effects caused by color, 3D depth perspective, phantom effects, tilt illusions and ‘jitter’; or the restless eye effect. Although there are more optical effects, these five work best in the texture of woven fabric, according to the authors. The basic principles behind the illusion of each effect are explained and the
authors show how you can create the effects with different weaving techniques. With more than 500 illustrations, including photos, block designs and complete binding drawings, you can get started right away.
But even if you like to play with optical effects in your own designs and enjoy a technical challenge, the book is very interesting. Most designs are for eight shafts and up, but the book also includes some for four (and even two) shafts.
The substantive chapters are followed by a portfolio with photos of woven optical illusions by sixteen other weavers including three Dutch ones. The book concludes with a chapter of technical weaving notes in which the weaving techniques including the binding drawings and technical terms from the substantive chapters are explained.
All in all, I can highly recommend this book.

Paulien van Asperen

Weven - the magazine for weaving in Holland