Man Paints 52 Self Portraits on Different Drug Combinations

[TomFoolery]

This reminds me of the This is Your Brain on Drugs campaigns of the 1980s and 1990s.

http://bryanlewissaunders.org/drugs/

Personally I find the heroin, computer duster, and klonopin ones the most terrifying. I also wonder how much other variables like mood and time of day factored in.

[aitm]

A rather interesting foray into what drugs can do to a persons personality. But I have to admit, I have absolutely no desire to meet a guy that would do that to himself even for "scientific inquiry".

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Either this is old news or he's not the first one to do this. (Psych classes come floating to the surface.)

[PickelledEggs]

Is it bad that I think these "guy does different portraits while on different drugs" thing that comes around every few months and done by different people.... is stupid. It seems too gimmicky...

... although the pot brownie one is hilarious and genius.

[TomFoolery]

I've only seen a handful, but I've never seen this many. I think these were actually done over a period of 20 years. This guy has done over 10,000 self-potraits since 1995.

[Valigarmander]

And people say drugs can't be inspirational.

[kilodelta]

...I don't recognize a lot of those drugs. I blame my sheltered existence of stalking ground hogs.

[Icarus]

Since he has a picture drawn while on 'bath salts' and 'bath salts' is a sort of catch all name that includes several of the drugs he has apparently taken I'm a little skeptical of the websites efficacy. I'm also not sure why he mostly uses the drugs marketed name and switched to the chemical name for some drugs with a more recognizable marketed name. The psilocybin dosage is also way too low to break the threshold unless whatever species of psilocybin containing mushroom he consumed was insanely potent.

[Aletheia]

I can honestly say that trazodone does not affect me in that way. Combined with prazosin, I feel a normal sense of sleepiness.

My most horrific pieces of art occur when I'm not on any meds at all.

[Hydra009]

Personally I find the heroin, computer duster, and klonopin ones the most terrifying. I also wonder how much other variables like mood and time of day factored in.

Until recently, I had no idea that computer dusting spray could even be abused.  Apparently, after a rash of abuse and deaths, they started adding in foul-smelling chemicals in it to discourage just that.  Drugs are bad, m'kay.

[SGOS]

The message is clear.  Some drugs enhance artistic ability, and some destroy it.  Choose carefully.

[TomFoolery]

I wonder how much mood, time of day, life events, and age (he's been painting self-portraits more than 20 years) has affected his style. Some of these drugs are barely "drugs" in the sense of illicit drugs, and some of them are about as bad as you can get. From sections of his own website, it seems like these drugged self-portrait experiments weren't intentional, but that he would do crystal meth or heroin or xanax of whatever, do a self-portrait, and tuck it away with the thousands of others. Later he went through his portfolio and pulled out ones he had done on different substances and compared.

[drunkenshoe]

I like the morphine and heroin ones. 

[Solitary]

I have drawn and painted on pot, cocaine, morphine in the hospital, shrooms, freebasing and smoking opium, and the one on LSD  is the best I ever did. I only made one surrealist painting that I have shown here when I was straight----someone is full of crap!