“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” – Andy Warhol
This is exactly what I’m going to talk about.
I’m a crafty person, crafting is my hobby. I paint with different mediums, draw, colour, and crochet sometimes. For every medium or craft, I had to master certain skills, buy the tools, and had to practice.
Let me give you a couple of examples.
One of my favourite mediums is watercolour. I love experimenting with how the paint behaves on different papers, and how it dilutes with different amounts of water. It also helped me to learn how to let the control go and go with the flow.
Dotting is another lovely craft, I use acrylic paint and dotting tools for that. This creative activity requires patience and focus. To be honest, I have to improve on both. If you look at this dotted mandala, you will see why.
So when we talk about art or craft, there is always a lot to learn – and not just about the craft itself.
Recently I met a friend of mine and I expected a nice chat over a coffee, but it turned out to be something very different…
It had been a long time since we last saw each other, so both of us shared how life was treating us. I told her I was creating AI art images for a puzzle application as a side hustle. I didn’t earn much, but I enjoyed it. On the app’s Discord channel once I was announced as “Artist of the Week”.
“What the hell are you doing? How can you even claim that what you are creating is ART???”
I was shocked. Her words hit me in the head. She hadn’t even seen my images, what was she talking about?
Okay, I know I’m no Picasso, but I never claimed that. AI helped me to create images that I couldn’t have made with other digital tools because I didn’t know how to use them. (By the way, digital art is considered as art or not? Just asking…)
On the other hand, I acquired the knowledge of prompting, read many articles about different apps, practiced how to fix AI mess on images, etc. It took me time and energy to learn this craft, just like all the others I mentioned above. And most importantly, I enjoyed it!
Artificial intelligence is controversial, everyone has an opinion about it, even those who have never tried any type of it. It’s like politics: most people seem to be experts on the topic without having in-depth knowledge.
Would I write a book, or an article completely with AI as a writer and journalist? Hell, no!
Has it ever happened to me that I turned to ChatGPT for ideas about an article? Yes.
So now do I belong to Writer’s Hell because of this? I don’t think so but you can answer this question for yourself.
While you are doing it, I will create more (AI) art.
Everything we create is a piece of art. Even a scrumptious dinner.
Why?
Because we enjoyed the process.
So go and create.
I love that dotted mandala!!