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Friday, October 12, 2012

Visual Art There's A Giant Trompe L'Oeil Daddy Longlegs Mural Out the Window of the Space Needle

Posted by Jen Graves on Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 1:31 PM

Artist Marlin Peterson painted it, on a grant from Artist Trust. It's hard to tell in this video how well you can actually see it from the Space Needle, so you may need to rent a helicopter to scare your relatives when they visit this holiday season. ("Hey, no, I'm just thinking a casual helicopter ride over downtown." This could become a thing.) Still: neat.

(Reported on Laughing Squid.)

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Comments (12) RSS

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Those are harvestmen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opiliones

These are the REAL daddy long-leges:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae

(Don't even talk to me about crane flies)

Posted by Unregistered User on October 12, 2012 at 2:01 PM

Those are harvestmen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opiliones

These are the REAL daddy long-leges:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae

(Don't even talk to me about crane flies. Also, cool!)

Posted by Unregistered User on October 12, 2012 at 2:02 PM

Next Slog Happy: in the sky!

Posted by MacCrocodile

on October 12, 2012 at 2:03 PM

Well, since "daddy long legs" is merely the common name for both, they are both right and wrong.
The mural is best enjoyed in rare Seattle sunny weather, in the middle of the day. FYI the span of the widest point on the female is about 100 feet. Check out my website for more details on the process: www.marlinpeterson.com

Posted by marlinpeterson

on October 12, 2012 at 2:40 PM

I was in the Space Needle elevator last weekend. I was at the back, so couldn't see it myself, but people up front pointed it out pretty quickly on the ride down.

Posted by Sben on October 12, 2012 at 2:52 PM

@1/@2 -- this is like getting into an argument about pop/soda/coke.

Posted by Beetlecat on October 12, 2012 at 3:04 PM

I absolutely love these things (3D-in-2D, not necessarily spiders). I understand the whole drawing-on-the-right-side-of-the-brain negative-space concept for putting simple real-world objects on paper, but I somehow can't make the leap to complex scenes. And that's OK—befuddlement and misdirection is behind our delight in magicians.

CLICK! ME!

Posted by rob!