Creative Processes. Art Is Art.

Still plugging along trying to find the time to learn design creation in Procreate. It's been hard to settle in while still harvesting and canning but now that is done. Also trying to entertain a husband who is retired can be exhausting, but I think I can see the light in that tunnel too. It feels like now I can finally put the outdoor work aside I can settle in with my housework and then find a day or two a week to do my self education. As for the hubby, well it's football season. Need I say more? hahaha

I have settled on learning with Procreate rather than Fresco because I don't trust Adobe to one day say that they will be charging monthly for this, like they do with Photoshop now. I still use my old PS6 but I feel I am missing on a lot of the new AI stuff the new CC offers. I might one day move to Affinity or maybe even back to where it all started with me in Paintshop Pro. I don't mind paying for it and also for updates but to charge me monthly is just a money grab that I just can't afford to encourage. Speaking of AI, I have managed to do a few more images with that for my PODS. I create at least one image a day with the new Night Cafe format. At first I didn't think I liked it but it has grown on me and encourages me to keep my account active. They now have it set so you have to create at least 1 free image a day to get the credits. I don't always create something good but that first image each day is free. If I see merrit in it I will continue with my own credits to enhance it and then pop it into Photoshop and other programs to enlarge and clean it up. Well, I upload it anyways. I now have a folder full of pretty cool images waiting to be upsized and cleaned. I have also discovered that I like working with copilot to create images but I have a feeling that isn't going to be free for much longer. I hope I'm wrong because I count on Copilot for much more than that. It is a great fact checker and it also writes a mean description and tags too. I find it is the best for working with you. I can have it create details without loosing what it has already created. Sometimes it will take liberties and do it's own thing but that can work out at times and if I don't like it I tell it to stop and it takes the image back to where we left off.

Below is a picture I created with CoPilot. We started with a park bench and then added on from there. It really felt like the picture created itself. Afterwards I took it into Gigapixel to enlarge and then Photoshop to add some stars and clean up a few stray pixels. That is something you always have to do with AI images. They are getting better with creating clean images but they aren't there yet. Many times I need to rebuild most of the images but that is something I find I am very good at. Or I should say 'Photoshop' is good at. I just know how to utilize it. The image is for sale without the poem. I just added the poem for this instance to show that AI can do much more than create an image. For my own amusement I asked Copilot to describe this image in the form of a poem. I gave him a little insight of what I saw in this old fellow and from that Copilot wrote this verse. I was so impressed that I put it in the image description. If you would like to buy the image with the poem let me know. It can be done.

This image 'Memories In The Moonlight' was created by myself as dictated to AI. It is for sale on various articles and as wall art at my Pixels and Redbubble stores.

I don't know how much longer I will be adding AI images to my stores. I might just continue indefinitely but am also looking forward to creating my own work with Procreate. I am leaning towards seamless floral patterns and maybe more word art but I expect we should take it as it comes and just enjoy the process of learning a new form of art. In the meantime I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. I am really enjoying working with AI and I feel no guilt over it. Yes, I still enjoy my photography but I don't have the time to go out on the road like I once did and I am sure people will only accept so many pictures of my backyard river. When we do go out and I bring the camera I feel that with the iphones of today everybody and anybody are taking the same pictures. I just feel the photography market is very much over saturated. Maybe the AI market will overfill with time too but there are many different genres that AI covers. My style is very different from the next guy's who's style is different for the other fellow's and so on and so forth. I also think with time and the lack of sales for many, the thrill will wear off and they will move onto the next fad. By that time I could pretty much have myself established to take over the market. I know ... I know... Dream on! hahaha That leads me to another topic. I am wondering if the time has come to look for other venues to sell. I am thinking of digital downloads as the PODS are all claiming to have troubles with sales due to expensive shipping fees and, well, the crappy economy around the globe. My own sales haven't been too bad but I expect the true test will come later this month when the Xmas shopping season starts. This, however will be a subject for another day. In the meantime, have yourself a very happy Thanksgiving if you are in Canada and if you aren't try to rnjoy your weekend anyways. It is the time of year we need to enjoy the great outdoors as much as we can cause soon enough we will all be trapped indoors. All my best Leslie