Langdon began a committed painting career in 1996, making a variety of works, as he searched for a direction. Some of these early paintings stem directly from his ambigram work. But they did not require that the painting should rotate, or that the viewer would need to navigate around it, although his "A Very Good Year" was intended to sit in the middle of a gallery floor. "A Portrait of the Artist", "Us", "Love", and "Optical Illusion" are Figure/Ground illusions that can be appreciated from a stationary and upright position.