Trippy Painting Ideas

Three patterns, illusions or surreal scenes at a time, with the trick or the palette that makes the eye do a double take.

Trippy Painting Ideas

Show all 43
  1. Portrait head built from fruit and leavesHard. Pear nose, cherry lips, leaf hair. Light every fruit from the same side so the head holds together.
  2. Folding screen in five steps of greyMedium. Palette: white, three greys, black, in repeating upright bars. The grisaille steps read as folds.
  3. Green heart that leaves a pink afterimageEasy. Palette: one flat green on white, a black dot in the middle. Stare at the dot, then at blank paper.

Next step Make the page bulge for real: 3D drawing ideasLearn the rules these break: perspective exercises

All 100 ideas

Op art patterns 28

  • Blue dots on orange that flicker at the edges Easy. Palette: cobalt dots on cadmium orange, close in lightness. Keep the dots one finger-width apart.
  • Burst of thin rays with one wobbling ring Medium. Rule 72 rays from a point, then thicken each ray where it crosses a single circle. A ring floats free.
  • Checkerboard bulging over a hidden sphere Medium. Bow the grid lines out round a circle and squash the squares at its rim. Fill alternate cells black.
  • Checkered tunnel curving away to the left Hard. Rings shrink and drift left. Split every ring into wedges, alternate the fill, and thin the far wedges.
  • Chevron stripes that fold like pleated paper Easy. Rule zigzags down the page, then shade every second panel grey. The flat sheet reads as pleats.
  • Concentric circles nudged off centre Easy. Shift each ring's centre 2 mm the same way. The stack turns into a tunnel leaning to one side.
  • Curtain of sixty wavy vertical lines Medium. Repeat one slow S-bend at 3 mm spacing. Even gaps matter more than a perfect curve; the sheet shimmers.
  • Diamond lattice that bulges and pinches in turn Hard. Warp a diamond grid with two swells and a waist. Palette: two tints of one colour, plus black.
  • Dot grid that swells in the middle Easy. Even spacing, bigger dots toward the centre. One fine pen and one fat marker give the full bulge.
  • Folding screen in five steps of grey Medium. Palette: white, three greys, black, in repeating upright bars. The grisaille steps read as folds.
  • Four quarters of stripes meeting at a cross Easy. Level lines in two opposite quarters, upright lines in the others. The quarters sit at different depths.
  • Grid of half-black circles turning in a wave Medium. Halve each circle black and white and rotate the split ten degrees per column. A wave rolls across.
  • Honeycomb of nested hexagon outlines Easy. Echo each hexagon inward at 3 mm steps until it closes. Alternate two marker colours cell by cell.
  • Nested squares stepping from yellow to violet Easy. Palette: yellow, orange, red, magenta, violet. Work from the outside in so each edge stays crisp.
  • Orange square glowing inside a field of blues Easy. Palette: one orange, three blues running dark at the rim to mid at the square. The square seems to glow.
  • Pinwheel of curved black and white wedges Easy. Palette: black and white only. Split a circle into 16 S-curved wedges and fill every other one.
  • Rainbow checkerboard pinched into one corner Medium. Every line converges on the corner. Alternate black with a colour that shifts one hue per row.
  • Red and green stripes buzzing at full strength Easy. Palette: one pure red, one pure green, equal widths, taped edges. Complementaries make the borders vibrate.
  • Ribbon of parallel lines looping across the page Easy. Draw a wandering band, fill it with lines that follow its edges, and crowd them together at each turn.
  • Squares squeezed thin toward a hidden fold Medium. Keep the rows level but narrow each column toward one line, then widen again. The page seems to crease.
  • Striped dunes that swap black for white at each ridge Medium. Arc the stripes over each dune and begin the next dune on the opposite colour so the ridges flash.
  • Taped stripes thinning toward the centre Easy. Palette: black and one neon pink. Narrow each stripe steadily to the middle and the canvas seems to bend.
  • Target of clashing rings on a black ground Easy. Palette: hot pink, lime, orange, cyan. No ring sits next to its own neighbour on the colour wheel.
  • Two combs of fine lines set five degrees apart Medium. Rule lines 2 mm apart, then a second set slightly tilted. Dark interference bands appear on their own.
  • Two fans of ruled lines crossing in the middle Easy. Rule a fan from each bottom corner. Where the fans cross, line interference draws curves you never made.
  • Two zebras made of stripes alone Hard. No outlines at all: curve the stripes over each body and run the ground stripes flat behind them.
  • Wave grid rippling like a flag in wind Easy. Wavy verticals, then wavy horizontals, then fill every other cell. Pinch the lines closer in the dips.
  • Whirlpool of squares turning as they shrink Medium. Turn each square a few degrees inside the last and alternate black and white. Forty squares is plenty.

Optical illusions 22

  • Birds that turn into fish down the page Hard. Cut a bump from one side of a square tile and add it to the opposite side. Morph the outline row by row.
  • Café wall of offset black and white bricks Easy. Shift each row of tiles half a brick and rule thin grey mortar lines. The level rows appear to slope.
  • Desert road with two bars the same length Easy. Converging road edges, two equal bars laid across. The far bar looks longer. Add a cactus and a low sun.
  • Diagonal rope passing behind a wide pillar Easy. Rule one straight diagonal, then cover its middle with a rectangle. The two ends look misaligned.
  • Duck that is also a rabbit Medium. The bill doubles as the ears. Keep one centred eye and a plain back to the head so it can switch.
  • Elephant with more legs than it should have Medium. Draw the feet under the gaps between the legs and leave the leg bottoms open. Count them if you can.
  • Face that still reads when turned upside down Medium. Eyes on the midline; the hat becomes a collar and the beard becomes hair. Turn the page as you work.
  • Flat grey bar across a black-to-white fade Easy. Palette: black, white, one mid grey. The bar is one flat mix, yet it seems to fade the opposite way.
  • Green heart that leaves a pink afterimage Easy. Palette: one flat green on white, a black dot in the middle. Stare at the dot, then at blank paper.
  • Grid of black squares with ghost spots at the crossings Easy. Black squares, white streets. Grey spots appear at the crossings you are not looking at directly.
  • Hand pinching the moon between finger and thumb Easy. Forced perspective: a big near hand, a tiny far moon. Overlap nothing; size alone sets the distance.
  • Hidden shape made by shifting stripes half a step Medium. Rule level stripes; inside a simple outline, offset them by half a stripe. It shows from across a room.
  • Open book that flips between facing you and away Easy. Two parallelograms sharing one edge. Left unshaded it flips; shade one side and it locks in place.
  • Row of darts with fins that fake their length Easy. Equal lines, fins pointing out on one and in on the next. The arrow-like fins make them look unequal.
  • Scintillating grid of white dots on grey streets Easy. Grey streets on black, a white dot at each crossing. Dark dots seem to flash on and off as your eye moves.
  • Two equal circles ringed by big and small petals Easy. Palette: orange on teal. Ring one centre with large circles, its twin with small ones. The twins look unequal.
  • Two ruled lines bowing over a fan of rays Easy. Rule rays from one point, then two parallel lines across them with a ruler. They look curved. They are not.
  • Two tiles of one grey that look light and dark Hard. Mix one grey. Use it for a lit dark tile and a shadowed light tile on a checkerboard under a cast shadow.
  • Vase formed by two faces in profile Medium. Draw one profile, mirror it, fill the gap black. Different noses give a lopsided, livelier vase.
  • Wallpaper of interlocked impossible triangles Hard. Build one tribar from three L-shaped bars, then repeat it on an isometric grid in three flat tones.
  • White triangle that is not really there Easy. Palette: black discs on one flat bright ground. Cut a wedge from each disc, pointing in. A triangle floats.
  • Winter tree with profiles hidden in the branches Medium. Pencil the faces first, nose to nose, then grow bark around them so the gaps carry the profiles.

Surreal scenes 26

  • Bird-shaped hole in a brick wall, full of sky Easy. Paint the whole wall, then sky inside one crisp bird silhouette. Palette: brick red, cerulean, white.
  • Chessboard plain with pawns floating above it Medium. One-point grid to the horizon. Drop a small shadow under each piece to show how far up it hovers.
  • Constellation joined from the specks in the paper Easy. Dot every flaw you can find in a blank sheet, then join the dots with curved or straight lines.
  • Decalcomania cliffs pressed from wet paint Easy. Spread thick paint, press a second sheet on it and peel. Brush the veined blots into cliffs and coral.
  • Doorway in a desert opening onto the night sky Easy. Flat sand, a long shadow, a plain frame with stars inside. Palette: ochre, violet, white spatter.
  • Exquisite corpse creature in three folds Easy. Fold the sheet in three: head, body, legs. Carry only the neck and waist lines across each fold.
  • Face sliding down the page like warm wax Medium. Draw the face true, then drag each feature into long drips. Leave one eye in place as an anchor.
  • Frottage forest built from pencil rubbings Easy. Rub a soft pencil over wood grain, leaves and mesh, then outline the textures into trunks and birds.
  • Goldfish swimming through a grey living room Easy. Palette: dull greys for the room, saturated orange for the fish. Cast their shadows on the wall.
  • Grattage city scraped out of wet paint Medium. Lay dark paint over a dry bright layer, then scrape windows and streets back out with a card edge.
  • Hallway curling into a snail-shell spiral Hard. A one-point corridor whose vanishing point slides along a spiral. The doors shrink at every turn.
  • Island floating above the hole it left Medium. The rock's underside mirrors the pit below it. Palette: moss, slate and a pink dusk sky.
  • Keyhole in the dusk sky with light pouring through Easy. One keyhole shape in bright yellow, rays fanning down through mist. Palette: violet, rose, lemon.
  • Lighthouse on heron legs wading across a bay Medium. The knees bend backward like a bird's. A broken reflection under each foot sells the water.
  • Old drawing cut into squares and shuffled Easy. Cubomania: grid a drawing into 3 cm squares, cut, rearrange without looking, and redraw the result.
  • One-minute blind scribble coloured like stained glass Easy. One unbroken line, eyes shut. Then fill each closed cell with a different marker and thicken the line.
  • Open book with a sea pouring from its pages Medium. The wave keeps the curl of the page. Palette: sepia for the book, turquoise and white for the water.
  • Piano keyboard flowing away as a river Medium. Keep the black keys in their twos and threes while the keyboard bends, thins and breaks into ripples.
  • Pocket watch melting over a table edge Medium. Let the rim sag like cloth but keep the numerals evenly spaced. Palette: ochre, umber and a pale sky.
  • Portrait head built from fruit and leaves Hard. Pear nose, cherry lips, leaf hair. Light every fruit from the same side so the head holds together.
  • Room with a cloudy sky where the floor should be Medium. One-point room, ordinary walls, clouds in place of boards. Palette: cream, cerulean and white.
  • Spatter-and-blot wash with creatures found in it Easy. Lay a wash, flick clean water on, blot. Outline the animals you find in the pale spots. Any two colours.
  • Spiral staircase inside a cut-open seashell Medium. Draw the shell's spiral section first, then fit treads between the chamber walls, shrinking inward.
  • Staircases running up every wall of one hall Hard. Pick three directions for down and give each its own climbers. One shared landing ties them together.
  • Tree whose crown is a single cloud Easy. Trunk and branches in dark line, the canopy a soft white cumulus. Palette: one blue, one grey, white.
  • Window showing night in a room full of daylight Medium. Warm light on the walls, deep blue and a moon in the frame. Palette: lemon, cream, Prussian blue.

Neon faces, suns and moons 24

  • Butterfly with a watching eye on each wing Easy. Paint one side, fold and press for the mirror image. Palette: magenta, orange, a black body and rims.
  • Cartoon cloud crying a rainbow into a puddle Easy. Thick black outline, flat fills. Palette: white cloud, six-stripe tears, a puddle that keeps the stripes.
  • Cat with spiral eyes and a striped aura Easy. Echo the cat's outline outward six times in alternating markers. Spirals replace the pupils.
  • Chameleon whose skin copies the wallpaper behind it Medium. Draw the wallpaper pattern straight through the body, then bend it slightly over the ribs and tail.
  • Crescent moon pouring out a river of stars Easy. Tip the crescent like a jug. Palette: navy ground, cream moon, white and gold dots shrinking downstream.
  • Eye with a galaxy for an iris Medium. Wet-blend violet, magenta and blue in the iris, spatter white stars, and keep the pupil pure black.
  • Eyeball balloons drifting over striped hills Easy. Round eyes on strings, each iris in a different marker. Stripe the hills so they read as rolling.
  • Face split into four flat colour quarters Easy. No blending. Each quarter gets its own pair of complementaries: blue with orange, red with green.
  • Flower with an eye at its centre Easy. Petals in heat-map order, red at the eye to blue at the tips. Lashes double as stamens.
  • Frog on a lily pad under three moons Easy. Palette: lime frog, violet water, three moons in pink, cream and cyan, each with its own reflection.
  • Jellyfish trailing ribbons of light Medium. Black ground. Dry-brush the tentacles in pink and cyan, then glaze white along one edge for the glow.
  • Melting smiley in neon yellow Easy. Circle, two ovals, a curve, then drips from the chin and eyes. Palette: neon yellow, black, pink ground.
  • Moon phases in a row, a face in every phase Easy. Eight circles, the shadow edge moving across. Each face dozes off a little more toward the new moon.
  • Octopus whose arms wind into op art spirals Hard. Each arm ends in a tight spiral of alternating bands. Overlap the arms so the bands cross and clash.
  • Open hand with an eye in the palm, ringed by rays Medium. Keep the hand symmetrical and fill each finger with a different pattern: dots, scales, waves, checks.
  • Owl built from rings of pattern Medium. Concentric rings round each eye: dots, dashes, scallops, checks. The feathers are rows of U shapes.
  • Rainbow running in drips down a black canvas Easy. Load six spectrum colours thickly along the top edge and tilt the canvas. Let the drips cross.
  • Ring of neon toadstools with sleepy eyes Easy. Black ground first. Palette: pink, lime and turquoise caps, with a white dot of light in every eye.
  • Snail with a hypnotic spiral shell Easy. One spiral, then split it into wedges and alternate the fill. Give the snail half-closed eyes on stalks.
  • Sun and moon sharing a third eye Medium. Split face, warm half and cool half, one eye on the brow. Palette: gold and orange against indigo.
  • Sun with flame rays and dagger rays in turn Easy. Alternate wavy rays with straight ones. Palette: three yellows through orange, outlined in dark red.
  • Tiger with rainbow stripes on a black ground Medium. Paint only the stripes and the eyes; the black canvas does the rest. One hue per stripe, head to tail.
  • Wallpaper of eyes, each looking a different way Easy. Pencil a brick grid and draw one almond eye per cell. Move the pupil each time; ink the lashes last.
  • Wavy checkerboard road leading to a smiling sun Easy. Two wavy edges meeting at the horizon, cross lines bunching as they go. Palette: black, white, gold sun.

How it works

Forty-three of these trippy painting ideas are planned for a canvas and the other 57 for pen or marker, so tap To paint first if you hold a brush. Both halves cover op art grids that seem to bulge, illusions that fool the eye, surreal scenes and neon faces. Pen and marker holds the trippy drawing ideas.

Read the full guide

How op art fools the eye

Op art is short for optical art, and the term dates to 1964. The 28 op art ideas here lean on its oldest method, pattern and line in black and white: bend a checkerboard and it bulges, cross two fans of ruled lines and interference draws curves you never made. Victor Vasarely's Zebras (1938) used stripes with no contour lines; Two zebras made of stripes alone is that exercise.

Illusions to rule, surreal scenes to stage

The 22 optical illusion drawing ideas are classics you can rule in ten minutes: a café wall whose level rows seem to slope, a white triangle that is not there, a duck that is also a rabbit. The 26 surreal scenes bend the subject instead: a melting pocket watch, a room with sky for a floor. For surrealism drawing ideas without a plan, frottage is a pencil rubbing and decalcomania is pressed wet paint.

  • Rule op art with a ruler and compass. The effect depends on even spacing, and a 2 mm drift shows.
  • On a black canvas, underpaint neon colours in white first. Pink, lime and cyan go dull straight onto black.
  • Most trippy things to draw in pen are alternate cells filled black. Dot each cell to fill before inking.

Questions and answers

Which paintings are easiest?

Choose To paint and look for hints that open with Easy: 28 of the 43 do. Red and green stripes buzzing at full strength needs tape and two tubes. Melting smiley in neon yellow is a circle, two ovals and drips. Of all 100, 56 are Easy, 34 Medium and 10 Hard.

Are there easy surrealism art ideas for beginners?

Yes. Surreal scenes includes chance methods where the accident does the drawing. Exquisite corpse creature in three folds is a folded-paper game to share. Constellation joined from the specks in the paper starts by dotting flaws in a blank sheet. Twelve of the 26 are tagged Easy.

Can I use these trippy art ideas in a classroom?

Start with the Op art patterns group: 28 exercises in ruled pattern and colour contrast that need a ruler, a compass and two colours. Read the other groups first. Nothing is graphic, but melting faces and third eyes borrow the look of 1960s poster art, and that will not suit every class.

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