Trompe l'oeil work can be created in almost any shape or size.  It can be as small as a tree frog on the wall, or as large as a the outside of a public building.

It can be painted or placed just about anywhere. However, placement must take into consideration the subject matter and perspective.  This is an important part of planning the work.

So, the question is: What can you imagine? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Walls:

• Doorways, windows, or balconies with outside views to anything at all. Hallways, rooms, staircases, atria, secret passages, secret gardens


• Niches, "moments", furniture, shelves, bookcases, curios and collections, pets or exotic animals


• Breaks in the wall to expose ancient stone or brick, hidden treasure, a secret passage, or the outside. Or the outside as if there were no wall there at all


• Exotic surface treatments: stone, brick, wood, rattan, marble, alabaster, mosaic


• Fairy tale settings, a castle rising from the mist, the Hall of the Mountain Kings, or just a meadow with a path leading off to mountains in the distance.

Floors:

• A good place for subtle jokes: a newspaper, dropped keys, a cat asleep in the corner, footprints


• A mosaic tile entry, faux design rug or mat, a compass rosette


• Faux parquetry, black and white tiling


• A logo, motto or creed


• An open trap door (with somebody looking back up?), a ladder or stairs leading down, a few boards pried up to reveal a secret stash or archeological find.

Ceilings:

• Well - the sky, of course! Overhanging tree limbs. Or how about a view up into the ocean and sea life? Have you ever seen another planet's sky with two setting suns or three rising moons?


• Skylights, trap doors, stained glass. Or on a grand scale: a rising atrium with more floors, hanging plants, people looking down, leading up to a stained glass skylight.


• Critters, birds, faeries, cracks with plants growing down through them


• A fabric tent top from the days of Medieval fairs or the the tent of a Bedouin sheik

Outside Surfaces:

• An old gas lit city street at dusk, with narrow streets wander off to what adventure?


• A stable with horses, a busy henhouse, a barn with the double doors open to reveal the dusty sunlit interior.


• A wall peeled back, or demolished to reveal - what inside?


• Shop fronts and the apartments above in a French or Italian village


• An old stone wall overgrown with ivy, and a door with a child peeking out


• A large shop window reflecting another time


• Stonehenge! The Alps, the Grand Canyon, the Sea of Tranquility with Earth rising in the distance, the Shire


• The edge of a forest, with a just over-grown entrance beckoning
• A garden gate, with a garden just behind, of course

So - what can you imagine?