Author: Don

Today’s quote

Mr_Sherman:

Using AI to generate images does not make one an Artist ….

AI image generation is clever, but it is not creation. I have spent years mastering the demanding craft of watercolor and claim the right to call myself a true Artist. The word artist implies depth of creativity, skill, and craftsmanship — qualities not fully exercised by typing prompts into a machine. Many participants here, with no training, practice, or esthetic discipline, effortlessly generate striking images. Platforms like NightCafe boldly call them ‘AI Artists,’ but they are, at best, Conjurers with DigitalMagic wands. Prompt-writing does take some imagination and skill, but it cannot compare to the work of those who paint, work with wood, stone, cloth or clay, with human hands. Comments like ‘Brilliant!’ or ‘Amazing Creativity!’ ring hollow when the skill belongs to the tool, not the operator. AI image generation is fundamentally the curation of output from a machine trained on the scanned labor of millions of artists.

All that said… using NightCafe is damned good fun — and I’ve been happily addicted for four years.

Today’s quote

Stolen Laughter:

I herded the church kids into the art room so they could play together. Twenty minutes later, I discovered them staring in complete silence at their phones.

The only kid without a phone was mine. She was drawing a picture of her cat surrounded by cat toys, colorful blankets, and bowls.

This is a new thing, by the way. I vividly remember kids playing and running around in the art room. It’s like in that fairy tale where an evil magician stole the children’s laughter.

Yellow and pink

The weather can always double-cross you — this is Kansas, after all — but it looks like spring is early this year. I snapped these pictures earlier today.

I am informed that in central Alaska temperatures are well below the point where Fahrenheit and centigrade are the same.

Fourteen

Against my better judgement I participated in this year’s February Album Writing Month (FAWM), in which one attempts to write fourteen songs in twenty-eight days. Despite a late start, I succeeded, uploading the fourteenth tune today.

They aren’t great tunes. Most of them were written and recorded in just a few hours, and they sound like it. However, quality was secondary; my main goal was to become more comfortable with Studio One Studio Pro, and at that I made good progress. I still miss Logic, but not as much.

While most of my tunes were essentially rough first drafts, there were some that I’m not entirely unhappy with, and I may rework and expand them later. Here are a few for the morbidly curious.

A little waltz:

Continue reading “Fourteen”