Optical illusions in pencil

I was being drawn to do some geometric art. Back when I was young, I loved geometry...not so much the theorems and postulates, but how lines worked together to create forms of all sorts. While researching ideas, I came across a page of optical illusions, so I have recreated them here.
The first one is a blivet (who knew there was an actual name for it?) or "the devil's fork". The other drawing is a Penrose triangle or "impossible triangle". Both are very reminiscent of M. C. Escher, one of my favorite artists. I may continue with some more...maybe some tesellations?

Playing with mixed media

Mixed media has never been a strong point for me, but my Artist Way group loves it:  the more different kinds of media, the better! I'm more of a purist I guess. This particular meeting, we didn't really have a planned project so we got out some gel medium and "played". I'm still not quite sure what gel medium is but it sure is versatile. Along with it, I used ink, magazine clippings, and pastel crayons on watercolor paper. Here are my creations.

Sonoma Valley Vineyard, watercolor

Sonoma Valley Vineyard, 11 x 17

This piece had been sitting as a pencil outline sketch for almost a year, and it called to me this weekend to be painted. There was an original reference photo that I had copied the outlined sketch from, but after a year, I had no idea where it was. I did my best to remember some of the details, but I also pulled up some other photos to help with color and more specific shapes. I feel that my grapevines turned out to look more like trees but other than that, I really like the way this turned out.

Painting mist with watercolor

After watching a free video tutorial by Jean Lurssen on how to paint mist with watercolors, here is my attempt. It is very moody and definitly not like my usual landscapes, but I like its simplicity. In fact, it is quite the opposite of my last piece, fantasy landscape watercolor, which is very colorful and playful. I used a half sized page so it is only 7" x 11" and a limited palette of mostly payne's grey and a little ultramarine blue and burnt sienna.

Just turn the page and leave me alone!

This is a quick pencil sketch of an idea that came to me a while back. I used a reference photo of my cat sitting on my lap.  The foreshortening of the leg is really exaggerated to create the illusion of her reaching out to turn the page. I think I needed to do a little more shadowing but overall I think I accomplished portraying my idea.