3.5 – Experimenting With Mediums, Styles, and Themes Lesson

Lesson Overview

This lesson explores how to use Midjourney to create AI-generated images by adjusting a few key prompt ingredients: medium (such as pencil sketch or watercolor), artistic style (like pop art, retro animation, or referencing a famous artist), and theme (such as cyberpunk, steampunk, or fairy tale). Each prompt element gives you more control—or more surprise—depending on how much information you provide to the AI. Using just medium, style, or theme enables rapid experimentation and discovery of new visual looks.

Learning to experiment systematically with these prompt building blocks is valuable whether you want consistent outputs for a project or are seeking unpredictable, creative results. Artists, designers, marketers, educators, and creators often need artwork tailored to a particular vision or brand. This lesson helps you test how small changes in prompt language can lead to big differences in AI output.

For example, a “pencil sketch of a dog,” a “watercolor painting of a dog,” and a “photograph of a dog” each generate very different images. Switching style—such as “retro Disney animation style of a cat” or “pop art image of a woman”—unlocks even more variety. Themes let you steer the mood: “acrylic painting with a fairy tale theme” creates a distinct narrative setting, while “cyberpunk themed city” shifts the overall atmosphere. This ability to experiment supports both rapid ideation and refined creative controls.

Who This Is For

If you want to control the look and feel of AI-generated images without complex instructions, this lesson is for you. It’s a practical fit for:

• Visual artists and illustrators wanting to expand their creative options
• Designers in need of tailored art assets for projects or campaigns
• Educators illustrating unique concepts or stories
• Content creators seeking specific moods or aesthetics in visuals
• Marketers developing themed imagery for brands or promotions
• Anyone curious about how wording in AI prompts changes artistic output

Where This Fits in a Workflow

Experimenting with mediums, styles, and themes happens early in an AI art workflow, right after learning the basics of prompt structure. At this stage, you’re rapidly prototyping images—either to discover new directions or to hone in on a desired look before adding further specificity (like composition or detailed lighting).

For instance, you might quickly generate several options: a chalk street art dog, a steampunk hybrid animal, or a fairy tale-themed painting. You might then select one direction for deeper development, such as refining composition or atmosphere in later steps. This lesson sets the stage for more advanced creative control in the following lessons, giving you broad options before narrowing your focus.

Technical & Workflow Benefits

Traditionally, producing artwork in a specific medium or style requires time, skill, and often separate artists for each desired look. With Midjourney, simply naming a medium or style in your prompt (“woodblock print of a sunflower” or “image in the style of Salvador Dali”) produces instant results in multiple variations. This not only saves time but makes creative exploration accessible to anyone, regardless of traditional art experience.

A designer working on a campaign can try a dozen styles in minutes, evaluating which resonates best with their audience. An educator can illustrate multiple interpretations of a concept—such as “cyberpunk” vs. “fairy tale” themes—without commissioning new art. This approach boosts productivity while making iteration and creative risk-taking almost effortless compared to manual or non-AI methods.

Practice Exercise

Choose a familiar subject (like a pet, a city scene, or an everyday object). Using Midjourney or your preferred generative AI tool:

1. Write three separate prompts, each specifying a different medium (e.g., “chalk street art of a cat”, “photograph of a cat”, “clay sculpture of a cat”).
2. Change only the style in your next three prompts (e.g., “pop art image of a cat”, “retro animation style of a cat”, “realism style of a cat”).
3. Experiment with three prompts that add a theme or aesthetic (e.g., “steampunk cat”, “cyberpunk city with cats”, “fairy tale illustration of a cat family”).

Compare the resulting images. Which prompt ingredient created the biggest change? Which combination surprised you the most?

Course Context Recap

This lesson builds your ability to guide Midjourney with concise, creative prompts focused on medium, style, and theme. You’ve moved from prompt fundamentals to experimenting with the artistic DNA of your outputs. Previously, you learned how prompt formatting affects result clarity; up next, you’ll explore how to fine-tune composition and lighting for even more control. Continue with the course to keep building your prompt-writing skills and deepen your creative toolkit with generative AI.