# @stevedmcdonald on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DO2OtZUjIa_
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/63359324-stevedmcdonald-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/fc9c6521af.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-09-21T02:21:44.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Steve McDonald 🎨📚 (@stevedmcdonald) — https://gondola.cc/stevedmcdonald

## Caption

"The Lights are talking again"

This week, the northern lights blazed across the sky, and I couldn’t resist. I took my own photos, layered them with drawings and landscapes, pushed them through a diffusion model, refined them, and finally ran them through some of my more fantastical landscape models...trained with both older works and new material. The result: a new process, a new way of thinking, a new way of creating. And I love it.

Of course, someone will say this isn’t “real art,” or that I’ve stolen something. Yet whenever I ask them to show me exactly what I’ve stolen and from whom, there’s never an answer. Most don’t even understand how intellectual property rights work...or how these tools actually function.

What they also don’t realize is my process doesn’t use text prompts at all. In fact, I teach people how to avoid them by working from their own drawings, photos, and imagery. If I’m guilty of theft here, it’s only from myself… which makes me both the culprit and the victim. And honestly, that crime scene is getting pretty old.

And then there’s the tired refrain: “These tools replace artists.” Well, I am an artist...and have been for nearly 40 years. If anyone should be using these tools, it’s me… so I don’t get replaced by...me...wait...what? 

The irony is rich: I’m accused of enabling the very thing I’m actively preventing. But these images, these experiments, are exactly what being an artist has always been about...finding new ways to see, new ways to tell stories, new ways to turn wonder into something we can hold.

Curious? Come take the course...there’s only one day left to sign up! Link is in my profile.

My illustrations are built from my own custom diffusion models, MJ moodboards, SD/MJ rendering, painting, touch-ups, and Photoshop assemblage. Custom textures, effects, and filters from Topaz Studio. In short, my own cocktail of analog, digital, and diffusion (AI) techniques.

#onlinelearning #aiart #artcourse #aicourse #drawing #digitaldrawing #digitalillustration #creativeplatforms #imagecrafter #creativeprocess #illustration #midjourney #openart #topaz

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 1,477
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 35

## Tags

drawing, onlinelearning, illustration, midjourney, creativeplatforms, creativeprocess, aicourse, artcourse, topaz, digitalillustration, openart, imagecrafter, digitaldrawing, aiart

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