It's a lot of fun to create abstract art with generative AI models like Stable Diffusion. You essentially get to use a variety of colors, shapes, and textures to present a certain concept. Making abstract art is usually the most fun I have when I'm interacting with text-to-image tools. There is something magical about explaining an abstract concept to an AI model and seeing how it creates a visual representation of it.
I know that abstract art is not for everyone. If you want to see how to write Stable Diffusion prompts for digital art that include a variety of different art styles, I have an article dedicated to that. But since I enjoy making abstract art so much, I figured I might as well share some of my favorite pieces and explain my prompt writing process.
The main point of this article is to teach you how you can work on your creativity. Writing prompts for abstract art is not easy and will require you to learn how to express complex ideas in a few lines of text.
How to Write Stable Diffusion Prompts for Abstract Art
I have a particular framework that I use when I'm writing prompts for abstract art that I haven't seen many people utilize. In fact, it's not often that I see people making this type of art with generative AI models. And that's a shame, because I really think that this is one of the best ways to use a model like Stable Diffusion.
Considering the fact that this type of art isn't supposed to represent external reality, I believe that you shouldn't describe the objects you want featured in the generated image. Instead, you should focus on describing an abstract idea or concept. In other words, an abstract text description will produce an abstract artwork.
Even though what I just described sounds simple, it's actually not and requires a lot of practice. You need to be able to channel your inner thoughts and use your imagination to think about the nature of reality. And then you'll need to do it hundreds of more times.
When I'm writing prompts for abstract art, I reach a state where only deep philosophical thoughts go through my mind. As I said, this takes practice. My inspiration is quickly depleted when I'm writing these prompts because there aren't too many ideas I can have at a time. It's not like describing a landscape. If I were to write prompts for landscapes, I could come up with a few dozen ideas in 15-20 minutes.
This requires more thought and mental effort. And when you read my prompts, you'll understand why. Since my inspiration for abstract art is limited, I've prepared only 7 prompt examples for you today. I usually do at least 10 when I'm writing articles with prompt examples, but I simply wasn't inspired enough to write that many.
Note that I used a 16:9 aspect ratio for all of the images you'll see here today.
7 Stable Diffusion Prompt Examples for Abstract Art
I have previously released an article in which I shared my Midjourney prompts for abstract art. If you want to compare these two models and see which one can generate better abstract art, I suggest you check out the aforementioned article.
prompt #1: abstract art, the eternal cycle of life and death portrayed through swirling patterns and shapes, a reminder that time flows endlessly in a mesmerizing loop
In my opinion, this is one of the best abstract artworks I made in Stable Diffusion. I can see multiple cycles of life and death portrayed here. And in the end, these small cycles blend together to create bigger ones. This is the cyclical nature of reality and the way life and the universe work.
prompt #2: abstract art, a glimpse into the intricate web of thoughts and emotions that make up the human experience
This is quite an interesting artwork. It's like observing neurons interact with each other to relay information. I guess that's essentially what's depicted here. I'd like to think that thoughts have no color, while emotions are colorful.
prompt #3: abstract art, the search for inner harmony illustrated in a symphony of colors and shapes
Many people have spent their lives searching for inner harmony. Life is about embracing both the good and the bad and accepting that everything that can happen is a part of existence. That's true for humans, any living beings on our planet, and frankly even celestial bodies.
prompt #4: abstract art, the exploration of the illusory nature of reality, where the essence of existence is portrayed as a shifting and transient mirage
There is a lot going on in this artwork. This is quite different from the ones I've shared so far. There is definitely an illusory element to this design.
prompt #5: abstract art, the evolution of knowledge depicted through dynamic ever-changing shapes
The evolution of knowledge had to start somewhere and was accumulated in what we'd now consider tiny bits and pieces, which you can see in the center of the image. As we grew and learned more as a species, our knowledge began to spread out at an incredibly high speed.
prompt #6: abstract art, the manipulation of fundamental reality of the universe and the transformative power of information
This is an interesting abstract depiction of the universe that I haven't seen thus far. I really like the colors that are featured in this image.
prompt #7: abstract art, the intersection of dreams and reality, a visual representation of the ethereal space where our deepest aspirations and the tangible world coexist
Sometimes, it's hard to tell what's a dream and what isn't. There are times when you wake up and remember something so vividly that you're not sure whether you dreamt it or if it actually happened. That's kind of what this image is all about. Reality and the dream world are eerily similar.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, the prompts required to produce beautiful abstract art are more complicated to write than most others. I used to have more inspiration for these prompts but after writing hundreds of them, I have realized that I began to repeat some of my old ideas. But that's what happens when you're creating something meaningful. There's only a limited number of truths that exist in our world.
I don't want to continue with my philosophical thoughts in the outro of this article, so let's take a moment to recap what's most important to remember about writing prompts like this. The first thing is that abstract art shouldn't represent external reality. That means that these artworks shouldn't feature any concrete objects, landscapes, or anything you'd see in the real world.
If you're using my framework for writing prompts, then you shouldn't have to worry because you'll likely never mention any objects in your prompts. Instead, you might only mention shapes, colors, brush strokes, and textures. But you don't even have to do that. You can also just describe an abstract concept or idea, and the AI model will produce art from it.
