Countless artists have experimented with the effect that drugs have on their work. User whatafinethrowaway, inspired by the “Nine Drawings” series which was the result of an experiment by the US government in the 1950s, asked her friend to draw self-portraits while on a psychotropic drug LSD. The friend took 200µg of LSD and drew 11 self-portraits over nine-plus hours of her acid trip.
“She spent between 15 minutes and 45 minutes on each of the cool drawings,” writes whatafinethrowaway on Reddit. “It didn't seem hard for her to focus, I was actually quite impressed by that. She just loved what she was doing. I don't know if the change of styles of the pencil drawings was on purpose or not.”
While Bored Panda does not condone the use of psychotropic or any other drugs illegal in your country, the surreal hallucinations and accompanying comments are certainly interesting!
15 min after taking LSD
Before any noticeable effect.
45 min
« Are you feeling anything?
- Nope.
- Those are some bright colors!
- Yeah. That's probably gonna get worse. »
- Nope.
- Those are some bright colors!
- Yeah. That's probably gonna get worse. »
1 h 45 min
2 h 15 min
« That was a good idea, buying coloured pencils. »
3 h 30 min
« I didn't draw the eyes. Do you want me to draw the eyes? I don't feel like drawing the eyes. »
4 h 45 min
« Here you go. I'm violet. »
Later: « Usually, I draw the eyes at the very end, because I don't want the picture to look at me while I'm drawing it. Here, I didn't want the picture to look at me at all. »
Later: « Usually, I draw the eyes at the very end, because I don't want the picture to look at me while I'm drawing it. Here, I didn't want the picture to look at me at all. »
6 h
« I lost the black pencil. I only had the coloured ones. »
6 h 45 min
8 h
After 45 minutes in the dark, listening to some Pink Floyd, she started to draw again.
8 h 45 min
She didn't seem quite satisfied with the last one, so she directly started this one: « During the previous one, I tried to draw what was inside my head, but in the middle of it, things were happening outside my head instead. »
9 h 30 min after taking LSD
While the effects were disappearing.
« Do you want to draw the last one? Like, a normal one?
- I'll try. »
« Do you want to draw the last one? Like, a normal one?
- I'll try. »