How to make a thaumatrope

Thaumatropes! Cut out a white cardboard circle. On the front, draw something on the left. On the back, draw something upside down on the right. Punch two holes in the sides of the circle, as shown above, and thread string through either side. When you twist them, they spin, visually joining the front and back images together.

This Paper Panther demonstration video for the National Museum of Ireland shares what happens when you layer the drawings. From the V&A in London:

“The thaumatrope was a popular optical toy of the nineteenth century. Cards that were usually either circular or rectangular were printed with a picture on each side. When the card was spun, sometimes using attached pieces of string, one complete image was formed.”

“A popular example was a bird and a cage. The images were often humorous and this set features a boy being thrown from a donkey and a bull chasing a man.

The illusion is created due to the phenomenon known as persistence of vision. This is when the eye will remember an image for a brief moment and, given two images to see in a short space of time, will combine them.”

Here’s that classic example from MrHenrysVids, but if you don’t want the bunny or bird in a cage, draw them with a different scene:

Read more about the history of thaumatropes from Jack and Beverly’s Optical Toys.

Watch more optical toy videos on TKSST:
• How to make a flipbook
• The footstep illusion & more optical tricks
• How to make amazing anamorphic illusions
• Pixar’s Zoetrope and how animation works

Updated video.