AI

AI

Today I want to speak about how AI affects me as an artist.

I'd like to start by saying I am no expert on AI art nor do I think I ever will be. I have attained a certain amount of Mastery as an artist so I do have an aesthetic and philosophical sense that I will use to navigate this topic.

Near the Paddock 6x8

I have mentioned occasionally that I had a career as a commercial illustrator for 13 years from 1997 to 2010. Prior to being employed as a commercial illustrator I had spent a lifetime practicing drawing but what really got me the gig was my ability to translate my skills into the digital realm.

As a young person I did not care for computers much. I could see a lot of reasons to be frightened of them. As it turns out all my fears were completely justified!

Sometime around 1992 I started becoming aware of the really cool coloring that people were doing in the comic books of the time. I've long had an interest and fascination with comic books and comic book art and am somewhat proficient with an inking pen and brush.

Being able to scan in your black and white work and then lovingly render it in full color without compromising the actual line work in any way was and is incredible.

So around early 94' I decided I wanted a computer. Because I was not making a fantastic income at the time I really couldn't afford a Macintosh so I got a PC. Long story short I applied myself diligently to learning programs like Painter, Corel PhotoPaint and eventually the king of all digital art programs Photoshop.

As it ended up, I didn't really learn Photoshop by doing much coloring of my line work, instead I became very fascinated with all of the different sorts of abstract digital art that I could create. It was very freeing, a fantastic way to learn.

Fast-forward to 2010 and my digitally based career as a commercial illustrator. I could feel AI coming in 2010, it took 12 years from that point before the AI was doing art that could put a commercial illustrator out of a job. I'm not an expert on AI art so it's possible that there was some amazing stuff being done before that but it would still be beside the point that in 2022 AI art made a big splash in a big way.

‘Stich’ a very early digitally colored drawing about 94’. This image has been sized up by Gigapixel.

Much of the art that AI produces is mediocre or just plain bad but some of it is amazing. Jaw-dropping, gob smackingly amazing. You would have to be blind not to see this and this is something that as modern artists we must address.

We may have to address AI in our practice as an artist or as a tool. Or we may just have to address the fact that it can create vital and amazing images in seconds that it would take a human a very long time to make.

I'll talk a little bit towards the end of this post about how I have integrated AI into my process. However,I think it's a good time to talk about that feeling we get in the pits of our stomach viewing the better AI art, the grabbing at our heart. This has caused some artists to declare that they are just going to give up and not worry about making art at all.

The way I see it is, it's not really much different than the obvious reality that I personally have had to deal with as an artist my entire life. That reality is dealing with all the geniuses everywhere doing amazing art all of the time! There's the historical geniuses, the modern Masters and also fellow contemporary artists, all creating artwork that is staggeringly awesome.

I see work on a regular basis that makes me think 'there is no way I could do something like that, how did they do that?' I'm not alone in this regard and I'm fond of telling my students that there is always going to be somebody better. Frankly, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it and never have because ithis fact is always going to be there it has always has been the case.

This truth hasn't stopped me from drawing or painting thus far and I see no reason to stop now. The actual facts of the matter are, that regardless of how clever (or not so clever) people can use words in collaboration with AI to create amazing images, AI is not here in our world.

Even when there are physical AI powered robots that can move and manipulate paint across the canvas, the AI will still not be in our world. Our world is a human world, we share with the plants and the critters. Like the plants and the critters we are born with the gift of life and sentience , we struggle, we live, we die, we create and that's how it is. This is my main thoughts on the AI matter.

‘Kope’ an early abstract digital painting circa 95’

Now, regarding how I utilize AI in my process. Having an extensive background in digital art, the manipulation of photography is second nature to me. I have been creatively enhancing the reference images that I use for my paintings since the very start of my painting journey. As an aside I would like to point out that initially I attempted to do landscape painting in the computer I will definitely attach some of those images to this post.

My feeling is that if I have some reference that is extra inspiring it will only make the painting better. I work very quickly and intuitively with my reference images I like to give them color casts, add vignetting all sorts of different stuff. I've been swapping out the skies in my reference images since the beginning. A couple years ago this feature became available in Photoshop and I use it extensively because it saves me a lot of time.

Recently Photoshop integrated some additional AI features into their interface. You can select an area and either have the AI generate similar yet different elements in that area or you can type in a prompt and Photoshop will attempt to create something in line with the text that has been inputted.

I like to use this tool to remove odd shapes in trees. Previously I would attempt to do this job with a tool called the spot healing brush tool which was an evolution of the original rubber stamp tool. The results with that tool are usually less than satisfying because it just references another part of the image, forcing me in many cases to make selections from other portions of the image and bring them up into layers and composite them. In many cases I wouldn't even worry about the odd shape, I just knew when I did the painting that I would change that thing.

Another tweak that I've been doing for a long time is adding a road, path or a stream to the reference images. I have a folder full of references containing these elements that I will import into my working document and attempt to make work in some way. Sometimes I get decent looking results doing this, sometimes things look a little like Frankenstein but their still okay for creating a painting because as the painter, I am going to be the last step in the chain.

Which gets to the huge point I would make. When I decided to stop creating work exclusively in the digital realm and instead just use digital tools to support my real world painting my whole outlook changed quite a lot.

I am the final arbitrator of what is good and what is bad in my painting. I will decide what shape, color and texture every element in the painting is going to be. I decide where the story ends. When I put down my brush the painting is over and it doesn't matter what went into the painting to make it.

I made it.