Mondrian Variations Series Collection
Mondrian Variations
In June 2023, I published a series titled Mondrian Variations. I used the two main AI engines (Midjourney and Stable Diffusion) I use, with a variety of techniques — txt2img, img2img, various control nets — to create a series of images that are inspired or influenced by the paintings of Mondrian.
Because of the sheer volume of images produced during the period, and with a fear that I might overwhelm the feed, I never showed the variations individually. I do like many of these renders since they pick up different aspects very differently. I want to be able to look at everything in their own sets, and to write an overview about them eventually.
So I will be publishing these previously rendered but never published works on this account, grouped by the style of the variations. It’d also helpful to me to see which variations are more successful when they’re grouped in this manner.
Variation 1. Forms and Figure.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-16
Variation 2. Forms on Figure.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-16
Variation 3. Forms on Clothes of Figure.
Paintings and photography inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-16
Variation 4. Brushstrokes in blue, red, and yellow, as fine geometric forms
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2. Stylisticaly, these are closer to Mondrian’s early works, and the lines are closer to works lik Broadway Boogie Woogie, instead of the much more structured geometry in his later series.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-16
Variation 5. Forms as body paint on male figure
One of my favorite variations from the Mondrian Variations series. This is the one image that I usually use to if I could only choose one to represent the concept and idea of the series.
Photography inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-17
Variation 6. Long Beard
People sometimes ask me if I have a type — I really don’t. I love long thick beards just as much as I’d like a man who’s clean shaven.
To be honest, I think that I just get bored with the same thing too easily, so I tend to change things up and try new things — and that applies to men also. Perhaps, for this reason, I certainly made quite a number of images for this series with people with very thick beard, which understandably is an acquired taste, but trust me it’s really hot if you’ve dated someone who maintained a beard like this in pristine condition.
A follower on DeviantArt commented that long beard is nice to look at but not practical to kiss etc — he can’t be more wrong. I supposed he only knows beard at 1-2 cm long, and at that length, it certainly could be harsh, but once they get long like this, they become a cushion and soft like hair. It‘s quite sexy actually (and fun LOL).
Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2. Mondrian Variations Series. June 24, 2023.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-17
Variation 7. Hints of Tchaikovsky
I love these a lot, but I can’t articulate why. Hence I never posted these before. I respond very well to the color overload of forms which create the background as well as the hair. If you look closely, there are no pure black and white, but all the supposedly neutral colors are mixes of colors. This is something mostly only seen in paintings, and it’s often why I’m so drawn to this medium.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-17
Variation 8. Intersection of colors at 45 degrees
Just thicc… lines.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-18
Variation 9. Intersection of colorful thicc lines at 45 degrees, with beard
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-18
Variation 10. Color block
Solid rectangular color blocks divides the canvas into halves, further accentuated by the centrally placed figure. The line that divides the background emphasizes the definition of the male body.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-18
Variation 11. Diagonal pixel…ish
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-18
Variation 12. Diagonal geometric forms
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-18
Variation 13. Delicate lines with geometric forms
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-18
Variation 14. 20% Leyendecker
I’m not kidding when I say that I always add a bit of Leyendecker to prompts, especially with Midjourney. I rarely do it in Stable Diffusion because the SD 1.5 models frankly lack good training data for Leydendecker.
But MJ? MJ will make that lean body type that I prefer, or at least nudge it to that direction. So yes, even for these muscle bears with beard, I add a bit of Leydendecker to “sculpt” them back down. 20% (0.2) is usually all that’s needed.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-18
Variation 15. French man with beard
Often when I prompt, I have someone in mind. I would describe his likeness in detail, though of course the results will look nothing like the person directly. What I meant to say is that they won’t have a facial match, but because of the prompt, they will have an attribute match.
This is one aspect that’s possibly unique in how I approach prompting. Many AI artists like to use famous actors’ names. I don’t do that. I like to instead describe someone I know, and adding attributes of characters about them that I admire, and also some aspirations that I think they would like to have.
These paintings are based on a dear friend of mine in France. He served as my muse in many of my AI works, especially when I test workflows where it doesn’t matter what the character is.
My approach to AI works with a male focus is slightly different than most of the AI artists who work with men as the subject matter. While many artists focus on the men, the men in my works are often not the focus — and in that regard, truly what the men look like do not matter to me. So why do I prompt with a friend in mind? I do that because it’s always nice to remember someone special when I look at the renders later on.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-21
Variation 16. Super Zoom
This is a variation where I made a series of zooms. Originally, I wanted to make a zoom video, where each zoom level also additionally has variations but the production gets complicated fairly quickly, and so I never realized it. I will likely make a better video utilizing all these zoom levels in the future. But as Midjourney doesn’t have an API and I can’t very easily organize and name the files in my own custom format, it’s also very complicated to make the structure I need in order to work efficiently. I really could use an intern!
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-10-21
Video 9x16
Video 1x1
Variation 17. Forms and Figure
This is another zoom variation but with a strong geometric motif — with contrasting geometric shapes and organic human forms. Everything is tied together by the color primary color palette of red, blue and yellow. It gets most really interesting at the third zoom level, when dark blue starts to create a background that helps isolates with the figure in the foreground. It has some British Airways vibe because of the royal blue and red accent in stripes.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-11-02
Variation 18. Wild colors at max zoom
These are technically from variation 16, but showing extreme variations at the max zoom level. The flat shapes turn fully 3D, and the AI engine attempts to make new figures on the outside of the volume, which turns surreal and bizarre.
Paintings inspired by the works of Mondrian. Text prompts in Midjourney v5.
- Rendered: 2023-06-24
- Published: 2023-11-02
