Sunday, 31 May 2026

MAY SUMMARY -- 2026

Augmented Reality: MAYA ROPE 
Augmented Reality: LIZARDS 
Augmented Reality: ALEBRIJE 
Augmented Reality: "Chrislady" 

AI ART pulled me through May -- especially 2D-to-3D -- though I kept up with the figure drawing and did a little printmaking:

 38 GLB objects to DOWNLOAD -- 3D files -- I generated them from 2D images using TRELLIS2 GGUF:

Download: "horserider.GLB" (1.70 MB)


PAPER SCULPTURES PLAYLIST (HOLOGRAMS to be seen on the LOOKING GLASS GO device) of the relief sculptures that I generated with AI in KREA Realtime:

Paper Sculpture
I generated relief sculptures 
in KREA Realtime from old colored drawings


KREA2 came out on May 12, 2026, and later I got to use this new AI Model for free for a week -- so I generated my fantasy vision of Clayton, New Mexico:

CLAYTON, New Mexico
I used the new KREA2 model
to generate a fantasy art colony in Clayton, NM

ALEBRIJE Sculptures from Oaxaca, 8 huge ones, were installed starting May 22, 2026 in downtown Albuquerque for the summer -- so I took photos of them next to the Classic Cars on May 31, 2026:

REAL! REAL! REAL!
One of the 8 huge ALEBRIJE Sculptures
in downtown Albuquerque for June and July 2026

REAL! REAL! REAL!
ALEBRIJES and NAHUALES
with Classic Cars in Albuquerque

I also generated FAKE ALEBRIJE Sculptures from my drawings:

May 22, 2026 -- ALEBRIJES
FAKE! FAKE! FAKE!
I used AI to turn one of my drawings
into a FAKE Alejbrije

Drawing into a Constellation

May 4, 2026
May 6, 2026
We projected my AI Sculpture animation
on the UNM Maddox Sculpture Center building
adjacent to Quelab on May 6, 2026

We toured IDEUM in Corrales on May 7, 2026 -- they make interactive museum installations:

We took a tour of IDEUM in Corrales
on May 7, 2026


DRAWINGS

KRRRL 2026
Best KRRRL Drawings of May 2026

May 4, 2026

May 5, 2026

May 5, 2026

May 11, 2026

May 11, 2026

May 13, 2026

May 13, 2026

May 13, 2026

May 18, 2026

May 18, 2026

May 18, 2026

May 29, 2026 -- PORTRAIT


COLLABORATION

CHRIS CHERRY and I collaborated on figure drawings. He drew from my drawings and posted a time lapse on YouTube. I turned one of the drawings into a GLB object, and he printed it on his 3D printer:

CC Collaboration
Chris drew over my drawing
on his tablet

CC Collaboration
Chris made a 3D Print from our collaboration

CC Collaboration
The 3D print
next to the AUGMENTED REALITY version


GALLIUM PENCIL

Adric made another Gallium Pencil for me, but it melted when I tried to draw with it. Gallium melts at 85°. I just have to transport it with an ice pack in the summer time:

GALLIUM PENCIL revisited
The Gallium lead melted
before I could finish the drawing


DRAWING INSTRUCTIONS

While doing a search in Google, Google AI gave a pretty decent description of my drawing method (perhaps not perfect):

KREA 2
Google AI instructions on my drawing approach,
was not too bad

May 20, 2026
Ken Romig's drawing


PRINTMAKING

Henry Morales, Ellie, Casandra and I put on another KIDS PRINTMAKING WORKSHOP at the Juan Tabo Public Library in Albuquerque on May 30, 2026, with a little help from the STAR WARS Storm Troopers:

Ellie and Henry pulling a print
with the STAR WARS Storm Troopers
during the Kids Printmaking Workshop


SWOON gave a presentation about her printmaking on May 14, 2026 at the Santa Fe Art Institute, as part of her exhibition at the Turner-Carrol Gallery in Santa Fe:

SWOON
SWOON giving a presentation on May 14, 2026
at the Santa Fe Art Institute

SWOON
Matthew Chase-Daniel of Axle Contemporary
is in charge of the Lena Wall in Santa Fe --
currently showing wheat pastes by Douglas Miles

I went out to the Bernalillo Public Library on May 9, 2026, to show JUAN WIJNGAARD one of the collaborative prints we made with his EXQUISITE TESSELLATION linocut tile

MAY 2026 Exhibitions
JUAN WIJNGAARD and EXQUISITE TESSELLATION Prints
at the Bernalillo Public Library on May 9, 2026

EXQUISITE TESSELLATION Prints -- 2024 SUMMARY
Everyone really admires Juan Wijngaard's linocut tile
for the EXQUISITE TESSELLATION project


Francisco Delgado made some lithographs
at La Ceiba Grafica in Veracruz, Mexico in March 2026



I may have finally found my identity -- like Monet, I'm an AI SLOP ARTIST!

AI ART

I pushed my ART through a lot of levels of Artificial Intelligence programs this month -- Locally, using both smaller and more powerful VRAM models, and on the Cloud with the commercial AI programs.


I've enjoyed generating AI Images and Videos for free with Google's FLOW, as it is intelligent enough to understand exactly what you want.  For instance, I generated this diagram with FLOW:

Google's Flow got all the detail
of throwing a baseball into Kansas from New Mexico


2D-to-3D

Adam installed the TRELLIS2 GGUF program in ComfyUI on his supercomputer at Quelab -- so I generated a lot of 3D files in GLB format from 2D images...until the program broke down at the end of the month (I tried to fix it with Claude AI, but failed miserably):

2D-to-3D -- TRELLIS2 GGUF
I generated a lot of 3D files from 2D objects  
locally with TRELLIS2 GGUF
Download: "azteccar.GLB" (1.47 MB)
Download: "fuzzybrain.GLB" (2.21 MB)

NOTE: The color and textures seemed to decay a lot after I broke down the GLB files into smaller file sizes to post them online, using:

RELIEF HOLOGRMS

I generated a lot of relief sculptures in AI in KREA Realtime -- from images I made in November 17, 2020 and November 24, 2020 -- and made 16 HOLOGRAMS with them, to be viewed on the LOOKING GLASS GO:

HOLOGRAM PLAYLIST
of 16 relief figures
for the LOOKING GLASS GO

Paper Sculpture
Some of the relief sculptures
that I generated with KREA AI


New KREA2

KREA came out with a new AI Model on May 12th, 2026 -- KREA2 -- and soon gave a full week of free generations with this new AI model.  

I had the most success with KREA2 after making made several MOODBOARDS -- and I made my three best Moodboards public, so that other people can use them:
HOWEVER using the MOODBOARDS made from my figure drawings did not give good results:
      • Fragmented Gestural Minimalism (made from my figure drawings)
      • Deconstructed Geometric Futurism (made from my slightly enhanced figure drawings)
KREA 2
Generated with the new KREA2 model
(specifically Fragmented Structural Papercraft)

KREA 2
KRRRL 2026
Cardboard AI SLOP


I used the "Surreal Fibrous Retro-Futurism" KREA2 model to generate a fantasy vision of Clayton, New Mexico, in the far northeast corner of the state:

CLAYTON, New Mexico
My Fantasy vision of Clayton, New Mexico


I used the "SURREAL ORGANIC COILISM" KREA2 Model to generate ROPE CRITTERS:

ROPE CRITTERS
I generated Chimeras with KREA2

I used the "SURREAL ORGANIC COILISM" KREA2 Model to generate ABSTRACT ROPE Sculptures:

KREA 2 -- Abstract Rope
Abstract Rope Sculptures around a Mayan temple

KREA 2 -- Abstract Rope
Abstract Rope Sculpture in the museum

I also experimented with a lot of prompts to KREA 2 (not uploading an image) and broke those images down into black-and-white, generating a lot of cartoony images with an emphasis on javelinas:

KREA 2 -- Black and White
Cartoon javelinas in the city
looking for coffee houses


Old KREA
Still Powerful

May 5, 2026
I still like how KREA Realtime converts my pencil drawings
into something more substantial

May 6, 2026
I also like how KREA Realtime
translates my drawings into "dotted lines" drawings

May 18, 2026
Dotted Line treatment
with black-and-white inversion

May 13, 2026
Download: "260513Bb.SVG" (50.94 KB)
I asked FLOW to thicken the lines,
and then made a vector image out of the result


ARCHITECTURAL SLOP

I need to draw more architectural and landscape scenes, if only to give context to my figure drawings.  So I drew at the Lena Street Iconik Coffee shop in Santa Fe, both inside and the scene outside.  The original drawing are faint and weak, but KREA did a nice job of enhancing them, with an AI model based on my drawings:

Architecture SLOP
The enhanced KREA AI version on top,
was based on the original drawing below


BONSAI IMAGE

BONSAI IMAGE seems to run locally on my laptop, after downloading about a Gig's worth of AI model.

At the end of the month a new AI IMAGE model surfaced  from Caltech researchers -- BONAI IMAGE -- which runs on my laptop, without any VRAM (and even on a smart phone).  The generated images are not great, but they do compare with those generated with the old STABLE DIFFUSION on AUTOMATIC 1111:

BONSAI IMAGE
The BONSAI image generations
were not the greatest, but they worked on my laptop

I imagine that a smaller, simpler AI Image Model could be useful, when trained on a narrow set of images.  The images then could be pre-processed this way, to then load into larger more sophisticated AI models.


LOCAL AI MODELS

We loaded some AI models on a 16 GIG VRAM computer at Quelab on May 2, 2026 -- and I was later able to generate code to make a 3D Cat in OpenSCAD:

llama3.1:8b
OpenSCAD
3D BUILDER
Download: "cat.STL" (15.02 KB)

Apparently we generated the "cat" in llama3.1:8b -- though we tried to load a smaller QWEN model to use on top of that:

llama3.1:8b
I believe that we used the llama3.1:8b model

The whole process was a little fuzzy to me, and I could do it remotely.  However I believe that we also generated a script to make a "cat" in BLENDER:
A local AI model generated a "cat" script,
which I uploaded to BLENDER

These 3D "cats" are not beautiful, but it is amazing that we could use a local AI model to generate the code to realize them at all. We did do this as early as 2024, generating code in AI to made 3D objects:
Apparently one can now control BLENDER with AI by using an MCP Claude agent:
I have neither upgraded to BLENDER 5.1 or downloaded the Add On -- however I did experiment with the Blender/Claude MCP approach in April 2025.


VRAM ALTERATIVES

VAST.AI allows users to use other people's VRAM for about $1.25 a hour.  This seems to be a peer-to-peer network that allows people to rent VRAM on computers on the cloud -- sort of like Napster for VRAM -- we rented from computers in Poland, Japan and Texas.

VAST.AI sample of costs

However I was unable to generate 2D-to-3D images on Vast.AI.  I could download ComfyUI on the remote computers, but I could not figure out how to download the big AI models to the remote computers.  While this is surely possible (probably with a DOCKER container), the 3D models are huge, and might eat up a lot of money just to download them on the remote computers.

3D FAIL

I imported 3D files into MarbleWorlds -- using their Beta Chisel feature -- but did not manage to create anything before my free credits ran out.  I believe that the problem was on their end, but I'm not sure.

***


MORE

CLAYTON, New Mexico
"WE STOLE THE SUN"
Fantasy hackerspace in Clayton, NM

MAY 2026 Exhibitions
PLEASED TO PRESENT

MAY 2026 Exhibitions
PLEASED TO PRESENT
had their first opening exhibition on May 2, 2026
in the old Maisel's building in downtown Albuquerque

I discovered BINGO STUDIOS, which is literally within walking distance of my house in Albuquerque. I had no idea it existed until I went to Eric Heep's opening:

BINGO STUDIOS
in Albuquerque

Eric Heep was previously a part of the AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE exhibit in Santa Fe in April 2026.  He was showing his FOGGY MESSY volumetric light installation at BINGO STUDIOS on May 9, 2026:

May 11, 2026
Eric Heep's opening at BINGO STUDIOs in Albuquerque
on May 9, 2026


Javelinas at the Mall

May 27, 2026
"House of Hades" tile at 2nd and Copper in Albuquerque --
knock-off Toynbee Tile

May 8, 2026 -- ARTWALK
Seen at the Albuquerque Artwalk downtown
on May 8, 2026

May 8, 2026 -- ARTWALK
Likewise seen at the Albuquerque Artwalk downtown
on May 8, 2026

May 5, 2026
I was on the Tuesday Night Drawing webpage,
of the Santa Fe drawing group


NOTE:  This blog broke After May 13, 2026 -- as the "Newer post" button does not advance, but rather just repeats the same blog post.  The "Older post" button still works however.


PREVIOUS SUMMARIES


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