Creative humans are capable of releasing their energy in the form of art. Be it writing poetry, singing a song, creating music, dancing, or drawing and painting pictures. Drawing is just one form of creativity.

So, what is creativity? To answer that question, let us explore the mind of a human. A tiny grain of thought is generated in the mind, which if the body chooses to, can turn into an impulse. If this impulse consumes the brain, the body produces a reaction which could end in creating a piece of art. The ability of the human mind to form a grain of thought is creativity.

While engaging with children who are interested in art books, it would be interesting to the child if books that recognize the human potential to spark a grain of thought are suggested.

In one of my art classes teaching visually challenged students, I observed the total number of students who produced a drawing. The students who were creatively motivated outnumbered the creatively uninspired students. This shows that a grain of thought is necessary for someone to draw.

One afternoon, we were drawing a red circle. My kids (I used to call them that, and, oh, I’m so proud of them!) used a mix of inspiration and instinct to be successful at this task. When a simple grain of thought takes root in a human mind, it has the power to gain momentum through becoming an impulse. It has the power to combine what you want to do with what you know subconsciously. The red circles I saw were an example of this.

A human is a human is a human. If students with special needs can indulge their creativity, so can children who are fully capable by themselves. It is important to invest in resources that are inspiring to children ranging across the spectrum. More important is the ability of these resources to gently encourage the child’s raw ability to form a grain of thought.

We’ve seen the case of humans. How does AI draw? AI is great at observing individual data points and recording them. It then plays a game of Situation and Response. Presented with a particular situation the machine can understand, it pulls out a data point and suggests it as a solution to the situation.

So how would AI draw a red circle? There would absolutely be no grain of thought, leading to an impulse, because machines cannot think and feel. At least not on their own. So the red circle would be one out of many red circles recorded in a database of colored shapes.

So no machine, software, or AI would be capable of generating art by itself. In training today’s children to interact with AI it is necessary to stock up on resources and actual software that cater to a child’s ability of thought. A dry laundry list of instructions, however, would not suffice on its own. The resources should help the child acknowledge their ability and match it up with what the software can pull out.

That’s the story of drawing, Creativity, and AI. I hope you liked it. This is my first time featuring at Life As A Human! I’ll see you again, soon.

G’Bye,

Gaurvi.

Image Credit

Image is from Pinterest

Guest Author Bio
Gaurvi Joshi

Gaurvi is a B2B Blogger with her own tech blog. She taught Art to visually challenged students while still at college. She observes artists and creators in her community while engaging in visual art once in a while.

Blog / Website: New Tech

Man made the machines which now dream

Enhanced Creativity and Exploration

AI technology has the potential to expand artists’ creative horizons by providing them with tools and algorithms that push the boundaries of traditional art forms. With AI-generated art, artists can delve into uncharted territories, exploring unconventional styles, and creating entirely new visual experiences. By feeding AI systems with vast amounts of artistic data, artists can leverage machine learning algorithms to discover fresh perspectives, unexpected combinations, and novel techniques, thus expanding their creative repertoire.

Collaborative Partnerships with AI

In the future, artists will likely engage in collaborative partnerships with AI systems, blurring the line between human creativity and artificial intelligence. Through interactive interfaces, artists can communicate their visions to AI algorithms, which can then generate preliminary concepts, offer suggestions, or even co-create artworks. This symbiotic relationship between humans and machines will enable artists to tap into the vast computational power and pattern recognition capabilities of AI, augmenting their own artistic abilities and allowing for a more immersive and experimental creative process.

Artists and AI will have profound impact on expression

Democratising Artistic Expression

AI-powered tools and platforms are poised to democratise artistic expression by making art creation more accessible and inclusive. As AI systems become more sophisticated, they can assist individuals with limited artistic skills in transforming their ideas into visually captivating artworks. This democratisation will empower a broader range of people, transcending traditional barriers and enabling individuals from diverse backgrounds to engage in the creative process. AI-generated art can become a medium for personal expression, social commentary, and cultural exploration, fostering a richer and more diverse artistic landscape.

A Profound Positive Impact on Artist’s Visions

As AI technology continues to evolve, it will not replace human artists but rather amplify their creative potential. By automating repetitive tasks, providing inspiration, and offering innovative tools, AI frees artists to focus on the core aspects of their craft—conceiving unique concepts, infusing emotions into their work, and pushing the boundaries of human imagination. With AI as a collaborative partner, artists can envision and bring to life artworks that were once unimaginable, thereby expanding the frontiers of art and inspiring new artistic movements. Ultimately, the profound positive impact of AI on artists’ visions lies in the harmonious fusion of human creativity and the computational capabilities of machines, propelling the world of art into a captivating and unexplored future.

In conclusion, the integration of AI technology into the artistic process holds immense potential. With enhanced creativity, collaborative partnerships, and increased accessibility, AI stands as a powerful ally for artists, propelling them to new heights of expression and enabling the realisation of previously unattainable artistic visions. Embracing AI in art promises a future that is both transformative and deeply inspiring.

Image Credits

Images are by Gerald Lee Farrell – All Rights Reserved

Guest Artist Bio
Gerald Lee Farrell

Gerald Lee Farrell is a visionary digital artist based in the United Kingdom, pushing the boundaries of creativity by harnessing the power of AI. With a passion for exploring the intersection of art and technology, Farrell is at the forefront of the artistic movement that embraces AI as a transformative tool.

Combining his artistic sensibilities with cutting-edge AI algorithms, Farrell creates captivating artworks that defy traditional conventions. His work reflects a deep understanding of both the artistic process and the potential of AI to enhance and expand creative possibilities. By leveraging AI, Farrell explores uncharted artistic territories, generating mesmerising visuals that captivate audiences and challenge their perceptions of what art can be.

Through collaborative partnerships with AI systems, Farrell has discovered a new realm of artistic expression. He engages in a dynamic dialogue with the AI algorithms, exchanging ideas, refining concepts, and co-creating artworks. This unique synergy between human creativity and machine intelligence results in a harmonious blend of artistic vision and computational ingenuity, pushing the boundaries of artistic innovation.

With a focus on democratising art, Farrell is passionate about making the creative process accessible to a wider audience. Through his AI-powered tools and platforms, he empowers individuals with diverse backgrounds and limited artistic skills to explore their own creative potential. His mission is to inspire and enable everyone to express their unique perspectives through art, fostering a more inclusive and vibrant artistic community.

To experience Gerald Lee Farrell’s groundbreaking work and delve into the mesmerising world of AI-infused art, visit his website at Geraldleefarrell.com. 

Image Credits

All Images Are © mafloku

Guest Artist Bio
Mafloku

Mafloku is a Mexican artist that works and resides in Tampico, Mexico. Financial Public Accountant who despite no formal training and a seemingly unrelated diverse background in prestigious financial, governmental, public and private institutions, and having started a very short time ago, has accidentally discovered ease of expression in boarding profound insights through color and innocence with an overwhelming positive reception with exhibitions in his home country as well as overseas, acknowledgments, and various national and international publications.

Blog / Website: mafloku

Follow Mafloku on: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Noisy distortion with a blast of color.

Attempting to escape from the dream world.

Degraded edit, with plenty of noise and grain for a creative vintage feel.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Austin Sessler

Guest Artist Bio
Austin Sessler

I am a 19 year old digital artist from Arizona. I focus on trying to inspire others to chase their creative ideas, and show people that there is no limit to our creativity, which is why I find myself in many different fields of art. My works can be found on Instagram @youngdumnumb

Follow Austin Sessler on: Facebook | Instagram

The “crazy flower” and all of it’s beauty dissolving in the sunlight.

A bird taking in nature’s beauty while being viewed through a trippy lens.

Imagine being stranded in the ocean, you’re trying to swim to safety. Nothing looks the same.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Austin Sessler

Guest Artist Bio
Austin Sessler

I am a 19 year old digital artist from Arizona. I focus on trying to inspire others to chase their creative ideas, and show people that there is no limit to our creativity, which is why I find myself in many different fields of art. My works can be found on Instagram @youngdumnumb

Follow Austin Sessler on: Facebook | Instagram

Sensei Vision is a custom Naruto character created in collaboration with Kenan Ozalp and his YouTube channel: Sensei Vision. The eyes on his clothes represent Sensei’s vision and his exceptional ability to see through the instances. Him having blue and green eyes resembles his spirituality and intelligence. The giant sword The ōdachi 大太刀 represents his distinctive skill-sets and tools he utilizes. I dressed the character with Hakama. Hakamas are regularly worn by practitioners of a variety of martial arts, such as kendo, iaido, taidō, aikido, jōdō, ryū-te, and kyūdō. Vision is the state of seeing and the ability to think about and plan the future with imagination as well as wisdom. The great sword ōdachi or nodachi 野太刀, field sword is a type of traditionally made Japanese sword 日本刀, nihontō used by the samurai class of feudal Japan.

SENSEI VISION

SPIRIT OF DRAGON FRUIT

I created a character representing the spirit of dragon fruit. The hair and the outfit resembles the shell of the dragon fruit. The body resembles the inside of the dragon fruit.

Dragon fruit may look exotic, but its flavors are similar to other fruits. Its taste has been described as a slightly sweet cross between a kiwi and a pear. Dragon fruit is a tropical fruit native to Mexico and Central America. Its taste is like a combination of a kiwi and a pear.

The dragon fruit has an appealing appearance, bright red, purple, or yellow-skinned varieties, and prominent scales. The fruit is elliptical. The flesh has a subtly flavored sweet taste or sometimes slightly sour taste. The inside is either white or red, with edible black seeds dotted all over.

SPIRIT OF DRAGON FRUIT

I joined the Ten Hundred Shape Challenge a.k.a. Random Shape Art Challenge in 2018, where I had to turn a random shape into art!

To put it simply, you take random shape outlines, coffee stains and turn off your brain and begin filling the shapes with whatever you can fit into them. It’s a great activity to do as a warm-up before a big drawing session or to get some new ideas when you’re in a jam from an art block.

There are no set rules to achieving it; take the image and let your creativity take over, turn the page any direction you wish, and you will begin seeing a mixture things than you would just looking at it head-on. You don’t need to get stuck drawing portraits either; try drawing mini environments, vehicles, architecture, anything!

Ten Hundred Shape Challenge

Image Credits

Images are by Anisa Ozalp – All Rights Reserved

Guest Artist Bio
Anisa Ozalp

Anisa Ozalp is an artist who was born and raised in New York, USA. She taught herself how to draw and paint at the age of three; her first drawing was “Elmo” from Sesame Street. She enjoyed animation and stop-motion films and was intrigued by how they were made behind the scenes. She loved reading imagination-provoking books which gave her the ability to create art today. Those who love art in its entirety would be great admirers of her work.

She mastered creating handmade dolls from imagination using her Singer sewing machine at a very young age. She is also assisting on art-related e-commerce projects which involve handmade products. Her artwork is a mix of handcrafted and digital. For her education, Anisa will be majoring in Art Animation. She holds a Fashion Design Certificate which she obtained in early 2021. She currently receives ongoing art training from her art teacher Song Binghu on still life drawing, oil painting, calligraphy, and watercolor. She obtained certificates in Adobe Illustration, Photoshop, InDesign.

Anisa completed several challenges, such as “Inktober,” “Continuous Line Challenge,” “100 Days of Sketching”, “100 Heads Challenge”,” Ten Hundred Shape Challenge,” with great success and praise from her followers. She is determined, focused, and continuously evolving in her work. Anisa always pushes the boundaries and experiments with various art verticals. She incorporates her artwork inter-culturally, representing different parts of the globe.

Websites: Anisa Ozalp & Anisa Ozalp – Medium

Follow Anisa on: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram

Look to the clouds, what do you see? As a child there was so much fun in seeing flying fish or a bearded face only for them to disappear seconds later. It’s only now as an adult with children of my own that I’ve realized the creative possibilities that lie naturally around us. Their curiosity changes our view of the world. Look at a mountainous landscape, what do you see? A panoramic profile of loved ones perhaps?

‘Remembering Judy’ is a commission of a lost loved one, the birds depicting the two young children she left behind.

‘Mother and Daughters’ A landscape of a mother and her four daughters.

‘Welcome To The World’ Capturing the baby’s face silhouette in a piece of art.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Rebecca Barlow

Guest Artist Bio
Rebecca Barlow

Born in the UK, Rebecca moved to New Zealand in 2018 and launched Turquoise Toffee design studio from her home in Auckland – creating traditional and digital media artwork.

Traditionally trained at art school in the UK, she had several years on another tangent as a nutritionist, and then bringing two little people into the world has kept her busy. She’s come full circle back to her creative nature and retrained in digital art, enjoying interweaving both traditional and digital work into her pieces.

Rebecca’s style is representational yet abstract. She seeks to capture the love of colour and movement, creating fun and impactful pieces that resonate with the viewer. With an emphasis on personalisation, her pieces are a talking point and most of all to be enjoyed.

You can enjoy her online gallery and shop at Turquoise Toffee

Follow Rebecca Barlow on: Facebook | Linkedin

Halloween is predominantly a residential occasion and we wanted to change that. This year, Archer Dental Toronto dentists made lifelike ghosts in the waiting rooms at two separate downtown dental clinic locations.

Ghostly specters haunt Archer Dental Baby Point on Halloween

In sub divisions across Canada, the Oct 31st event is important because it allows neighbours to go forth and meet each other, often for the first time. Whole families go door to door and trick-or-treat face to face in the flickering porch light of friendly Jack – o – lanterns. Houses are decorated and people parade about in costume. But downtown, by contrast, the festival goes ignored. Certain community-minded shopping malls shamelessly promote their property as a safe alternative to dark streets, but by and large commercial businesses do not get the Halloween spirit, and if they do it’s only for marketing purposes.

The dentists reasoned they could do something exceptional as they have a good reputation for doing innovative things including painting huge wall murals, and making emergency dental courier videos, not to mention all the press they garner every day for doing world class dentistry. Back in September, the office managers for all three locations decided they weren’t going to simply trot-out the same orange and black streamers and not-so-spooky posters salvaged from some primary education school supply store. This year we vowed to do something better.  We decided to make a proper ghost projection attraction that could haunt two of our offices (with street-level walk-in waiting rooms) at night, and make an impression on pedestrians who pass their front windows.

Making an impression on pedestrians who pass by!

So just what is a ghost exactly?

To make a proper supernatural presentation, it might be helpful to know just what exactly comprises an authentic ghost. Oh sure, it’s the spirit of a deceased person, as everyone says, but what is the actual substance we behold? The idea of ghosts has been around forever. They were in fact mentioned in The Epic of Gilgamesh, mankind’s oldest known written work. Ghost stories are part of most cultures’ folklore, although the essential definition of what comprises a ghost varies from country to country. Catholics for example have a Holy Ghost as one of three core components in their belief system. Shakespeare invoked ghosts in several plays and he advanced the idea that spirits were made of ‘airs from heaven’. Ghostbusters, a 1984 American fantasy comedy film debuted the idea of spirits being ectoplasmic. Today YouTube is filled with filmmakers who attempt to capture spirits on video. Have you ever watched those videos? They’re not very impressive. Real ghosts are often just unexplained bright spots or strange mists on camera. Fortunately our clinics have no real ghosts, and so we happily set about making some on this special occasion.

The realities of projecting ghosts

After some research we concluded that to make ghosts appear and disappear in a dimly lit dental office waiting room would require three basic components:

1. Projector – the source of the effect.
2. Ghost media – the video image that will be projected to make the effect.
3. The screen – the cast needs substance to illuminate, otherwise invisible, that is illuminated by the effect.

The media is loaded into a computer or placed directly into the projector. This device is then aimed at the sheer fabric screen that is otherwise invisible in the dimly lit room.

The exact positioning of the projector and screen are rather critical to making the ghost projection appear real and lifelike.  Like any good cake recipe, the devil is in the details.  Each time we set this up, we tried several different layouts with various different parts and pieces until we evolved just the right effect.

We got started the week before Halloween. The installation on the first night was a disaster. I’d gone out and bought exactly the wrong screen material from William F Whites, a film rental house in Toronto and that material was much too thick and too heavy. Two people labored to hang it in from the ceiling of Archer Dental Little Italy waiting room and it bent three ceiling tile flanges.

And it didn’t work. The black scrim diffused the light miserably and actually lit up the room; it simply made a fuzzy ball upon which it was near impossible to focus the beam. So we scraped it entirely and kissed $225 dollars goodbye. Someone ran to Walmart the next day and bought fabric sheers for $12 and binder clips and we tried again the following evening in the same location.

Archer Little Italy

Night Two is when we realized our FX projector wasn’t really designed for bright city streets. One of the downfalls of doing this in the city is how bright the streets are at night. You’d never realize it unless you did something like this and you need darkness for it to work.  We could turn off all the lights inside our office of course, but we couldn’t control the light levels outside. And the Walmart fabric sheers had quilt-pattern folds which caught the light. And the video clip was too short and the amount of time the ghost was off-screen was too short. She didn’t disappear for any length of time at all. That meant the apparition could not then suddenly reappear and scare spectators. So that component also needed an overhaul. 

The sheer fabric seen here is mounted too close to the window.

Night Three saw us try again with better screen material, a longer video, and a much better projector.  We reconvened at Archer Dental Baby Point, 387 Jane St just south of Annette. The traffic cues up there at the stop light and so the ghost would be visible to passing motorists stuck at the light all night long. It would be especially visible to the passengers in those cars waiting at the light.

On that night we debuted the Epson VS250, a 3LCD projector with ‘3-chip technology’ which I think actually helped us get a better focus on the sheer fabric. The projector has an 800 x 600 SVGA resolution and a more finely calibrated focus ring on its front lens. The extra brightness meant we could get some distance back and still have enough intensity to mesmerize pedestrians.

Epson VS250

We also upgraded the screen again and this third iteration was the final evolution. We nailed it. That morning I’d visited Fabricland and had purchased a wide sheet of sheer material for twenty bucks, a fraction of the cost of the material we’d initially sourced.  And being so lightweight it was infinitely easier to hang.  The fabric was also quite stretchy and when pulled taut it almost disappeared into a misty ambiance.  When viewed from outside with no ghostly lights the fabric simply melted into the air and made the interior of the dental office waiting room appear slightly misty.

So the stage was set for our ghostly lady to reappear, and that component was also improved in the interim.  Our projectionist had gone online and downloaded Shotcut and thereafter she bought and then stitched together a sequence of short videos of one particular ghostly lady (sold online by AtmosFX com). She assembled a story that featured the ghost moving left and then right and then, most importantly, fading away for five seconds and then suddenly, shockingly reappearing. The specter explodes in anger which you can probably see in some of these pictures.  There was audio too and next year we’ll hook that up to exterior speakers which don’t exist at these two locations at this time. The audio cues would be very helpful in getting pedestrians to notice the effect playing in the window.

The ghost dances left and right, courtesy of AtmosFX

Photo Credits

Photos by Rob Campbell – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio
Rob Campbell

Rob Campbell is a freelance nature writer and author living in Toronto, Canada. Son of a beekeeper, Rob is keenly interested in using technology to improve conservation and the preservation of our natural world; he funds projects that use gadgets to study and improve the lives of insects (honeybees) and animals around us, especially those unfortunate creatures that are, like so many of us humans, stuck living in the city.

Rob is actively involved in Toronto’s business world and the city’s cultural art scenes.

Website: Dumpdiggers Blog

Follow Rob on: Twitter

Particles of feelings emanating from the soul.

Sudden attack of something unknown.

Drama. Motion. Action. Dangerous life, balancing on the edge.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Michal Dunaj

Artist Bio
Michal Dunaj

I’m self-taught digital artist living in Slovakia. I’ve been working mainly with fractal art for 11 years.

Blog / Website: DunajArt

Follow Michal Dunaj on: Twitter

Seo Young Chang’s “Circle,” single-channel video, 8min, 2017

Off implicates a state of waiting for something to be turned “on” again. Reflecting her interest in disease and death, Chang has developed her work around the relationship between body and time. The debilitated body goes into the individual spacetime of “off” as its pain cannot be shared with others because of the relativity of pain. A single-channel video work Circle (2017) and a two-channel video installation Nameless Disease (2016) represents the body in this state of “off,” being isolated from the external society. Running in a loop, both works present the perennially repeated movements of performers within orchestrated situations. For example, the work Circle shows an endless loop of a performer descending a spiral staircase; and Nameless Disease displays a man moving along the same circle over and over again while lifting his heels up. These limited situations in the videos maximize the sense of anxiety and unfamiliarity. At the same time, these endless looping videos build up a world, from which the subject cannot escape by its own will while the performers in Circle and Nameless Disease continue repeating their movements in order to escape from their incomplete body.

Seo Young Chang’s “Cream,” single-channel video, 6min, 2018

Cream (2018), Chang’s recent piece, confronts death with a neutral attitude. In Cream, a person’s nose and mouth are exposed outside of the body-bag that holds a corpse. Two hands are massaging skin/leather, which is unclear whether it belongs to a person who is alive. A person in the body-bag repetitively refers to ten adjectives that are frequently used for anti-aging cream advertisements. Cream refers to two different types of cream—one is an anti-aging facial cream for human skin and the other is a cream for managing leather products. The dual function of the single word cream corresponds to the transition between life and death.  The precarious state of human existence has been a primary question in Seo Young Chang’s work. Narrated in an estranged voice, her work illuminates the incompleteness of a being who is destined to oscillate between life and death, beginning and end, and past and future. Not knowing where she/he belongs to, her/his feeling of anxiety and desolation is mediated through the loading time of a video. In an attempt to describe someone’s repetitively denied way of existing and its possible form, the artist sets up a situation by using repetitive movements, texts, rules, conditions, and narration as her main material.

Seo Young Chang’s Off explores an indeterminate condition of existence, body, and time and brings the question of human existence into our own life.

Seo Young Chang’s “A Story of a Bear, Who Drowns Forever, Over and Over,” single-channel video, 16min, 2013

Image Credits

All Images Are © Seo Young Chang

Artist Bio
Seo Young Chang

Seo Young Chang (b. 1983) received her M.A in Art in Context from Berlin University of the Arts and M.F.A and B.F.A in Sculpture from Ewha Womans University. Chang has held solo exhibitions at CR Collective (2017, Seoul, Korea), Gyeongnam Art Museum (2012, Seoul, Korea), Space Zip (2010, Seoul, Korea). Her works in group exhibitions have been presented at venues including Arko Art Center (2018, Seoul, Korea), Seoul Museum of Art (2018, Seoul, Korea), Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (2018, Seoul, Korea), Art Space Pool (2018, Seoul, Korea), Wumin Art Center (2018, Cheongju, Korea), One and J. (2018, Seoul, Korea), Archive Bomm (2017, Seoul, Korea), Incheon Art Platform (2017, Incheon, Korea), Total Museum of Contemporary Art (2017, Seoul, Korea), Gallery 175 (2017, Seoul, Korea), Shinhan Gallery Yeoksam (2017, Seoul, Korea), DOOSAN Gallery (2015, Seoul, Korea). Chang has participated in artist-in-residency programs at Chapter II Residency (2018, Seoul, Korea), Incheon Art Platform (2017, Incheon, Korea), and MMCA Residency Goyang (2016, Goyang, Korea).

Chang’s solo exhibition “Off” is held at DOOSAN Gallery New York at 533 W 25th Street, New York, NY 10001, from April 25th to June 8th, 2019.

Blog / Website: DOOSAN Art Center

Follow Seo Young Chang on: Facebook