An Interest
In the modern times AI is a complex yet useful tool for a number of tasks but I have a strong interest in Art. Not necessarily the art that AI can create but its ability to enhance someone's art or artistic process. I’d like to test my art skills and AI’s to enhance my art into a digital format using my drawing skills. Using AI algorithms to generate art based on my inputs and comparing these outputs with my traditional artworks.
Art & Me
As a traditional artist primarily focused on drawing and painting, art is not just a hobby but a central part of my life. My dedication extends beyond personal practice to actively engaging in art classes, constantly trying to refine my skills and express my vision more clearly. I have been drawing for countless years and have wanted to get into digital drawing but I’ve seemed to be holding back for some time because I don’t know where to even begin. Drawing digitally is very intimidating to me and traditionally drawing is something that seems to come easy to me, they are similar in some aspects yet are so different.
What about AI?
Through this semester I’ve learnt to utilize advanced AI tools that have not only expanded the boundaries of what I thought was possible in art but also enhanced my ability to conceptualize and execute projects. Among these tools, ChatGPT has stood out, assisting me not just academically but also creatively, offering insights and support as I navigate complex concepts and seek inspiration for projects. I have a particular interest in image generation because it's simply fascinating how in a matter of seconds an image can appear despite the fact that it can be faulty at times. AI can produce exactly what you want.
At the moment there is a lot of controversy with AI and whether its considered authentic art given that people believe that it steals from artists. There is an increasing debate going abc and for about how AI should and shouldn’t be used and of course there is the point of copyright since there aren’t any rights to it at the moment. But the biggest concern is its authenticity and whether AI is actually creative given that it relies on data to make connections to prompts. Opposed to this side some people see AI as a tool, for a number of tasks, which I myself attest to. I think of it as a way to quickly make images as a tool for creative purposes with respect to image generation personally. My opinion on whether its art is separate but I’d like to use it as a tool to help me learn and improve. I think there are endless questions that could be asked about image and art generation when it comes to AI but I have a particular interest in:
- How can I enhance traditional drawings with AI?
- How could it be used to guide one into digitally drawing?
- How could AI assistance affect art making and learning practice?
It's difficult to zero in on a single question but I think that in a way all these questions coneside with integrating AI into making art. I don’t want to use or test how AI can make or imitate art because we know it can but I want to test my abilities and see how it will react to traditional art. As a way of transforming art and testing ways of what my art could become as a vision of sorts. I’m not sure if there is a definitive answer to what I’m looking for but experimenting with AI and types of art will surely get me somewhere. I know that when it comes to drawing to image generation people typically think of drawing with a stylist on screen then developing an image but I want to step away from this approach and go old fashioned I guess you could say.
Methodology & Practice
There are a lot of steps that need to be taken in order for me to achieve some type of conclusion and results but mainly experimentation. There are a number of factors that come into play in an experiment that I’m researching from content to programs. To begin I needed to identify what AI programs I would use, how, and what their abilities are, and if I would try using various. Additionally, I would need to select drawings that I have made and decide on what is suitable and or best for what I’d like to test.
Given that my project is highly focused on image based aspects I would need to find out what AI could read images to do image to image generatives. That proved to be more difficult than I had thought it would be because in class we did experiment with a few image generators but Dall-e on Chat GPT couldn’t read images so that was a dead end however I did use it to help me create a plan and organize my thoughts. I did try using leftover credits on Runway but it didn’t quite work out how I intended it to. Runway essentially kept crashing and not giving me any end result despite using up credits and loading for about 7 minutes when I attempted to transform my images. At this point I felt a bit stuck and didn’t know where to go so I did some searching online for AI that could do this and I was overwhelmed by the results. Finally I remembered the presentation that we had with Happy Finish and I looked into one of the AI’s mentioned in the presentation, Vizcom. I felt incredibly relieved when I found out it was free because paying for another subscription was not something I wanted to do. And although this AI was intended for onscreen drawing and products it accepted images, I found easy to use.
Selecting through my drawings was a bit of a challenge because I wasn’t certain of what would be best to include because I had so much to choose from. I ended up selecting drawings that used different types of materials and subjects. I thought about using paintings but then I thought about how if I were to digitally draw from a traditional piece I would certainly start with pencil or pen. I wouldn't go through the effort of using color. Not only that but I have a strong preference for drawing with graphite and pen so it would only make sense to do this how I would if this weren’t an experiment. I tried to use a variety of drawings that ranged from what I like to draw and some odd pieces.
Co-Creation
Overall I think that using my drawing skills as a starting point to then be enhanced with AI is both a personal exploration and a reflection of the broader implications of technology on creativity. I’m able to take a sketch or a detailed piece and transform it into something that is digitally rendered that can serve as a tool to allow me to grow as an artist. And although I can use AI to make an artwork it's more about the intersection between hands-on skills and learning.