Susu, my imaginary granddaughter, is looking down from the window.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Disappointing Outcomes
This is an all-felt recreation of my picture of the Girl with the Green Eyes. It was simply a matter of running my digital picture through the AI Mirror Felt Filter which used its special AI magic to transfer every part of the image into a needlecraft-looking thingy made of what appears to be felt. But no beaver pelts were chewed on to make it. It is a brief look at what the incredibly single-minded magic of AI can actually do. And I would like to submit more of my artwork to this filter, but that would cost money to use it. That’s the thing about AI. It is meant to generate lots of money for somebody… and that somebody is not me.
I enjoy using digital and AI tools to draw. Arthritis and color blindness and muscle spasms have been leeching away my art abilities. These tools make drawing easier and not only restore my drawing ability, they help me go beyond what I have done before.
This gives you an idea of what I used to be able to do, drawing freehand and blending colors with colored pencils. I have been told by friends and family familiar with my older artworks that they prefer my old style to the new anime-style, AI-filter digital stuff. And I understand that sentiment completely. I wish I still could do that.
This is an example of the very best I can do the old way that is also done this year. The colors are no longer fully blended and solidified. It hurts too much to put enough layers on to achieve the solid colors and the blends. My hands no longer manage the repetitions of small lines in layers.
This is about an hour’s worth of work on the digital drawing pad. You can see the basic design and you can also see the splotches and glitches caused by arthritis. I did take it further before applying the AI Mirror art editor, but the flaws are not gone until the AI cleans them up completely.
Here it is after the first application of AI Mirror.
Then clothing is added. That, of course, needs to be cleaned up too and a background added.
And I reach an endpoint that satisfies my need to draw and create. Picsart AI Photo Editor inserted the background.
I know there is way too much AI artwork out there on the web. Much of it is downright lazily created and awful. I hope mine isn’t too. But I have seen things that are masterfully done which reveal possibilities of using AI tools in very artful ways. I am not satisfied with AI art on the internet. But I don’t believe we are wasting our time completely either.
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Depressing Pessimisting
I have been feeling low and mortality is weighing heavy upon me. My dog has cancer and she is probably dying. She’s already slowing and not going on the usual walks with me. My dad’s little dog stopped going on walks shortly before she died. And my dad loved her enough that he only survived her by a couple of years. I am seeing an alarming pattern here.
, My health is headed downhill. I can’t read and write like I did two years ago. I am floundering and passing out frequently. But I can still draw with the aid of digital tools and AI art and photo editing apps. I am using a Drawing Pad program with AI Mirror and Picsart AI Photo Editor. I can draw faster and better than ever before. But it is a matter of doing what I can before I die.
Sorry to be such a downer, but I am not looking forward birthday number 68 and the world it will happen in.
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Creepy’s Haunted House
“Hey, howdy, Pearla! Fancy meeting you out here, outside the new house I am going to haunt. You wanna come along and help me ghostify a few terrified human-types?”
“Oh, no, Creepy. Look at all the lights on in there. People might actually see me. And I am not wearing any ghost clothes. I don’t want humans to see me naked.”
“Ghosts is supposed to be naked, Pearla. Didn’t you ever read those Casper the Friendly Ghost comic books when you were a living kid?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you ever see Casper or the Ghostly Trio wearing any pants?”
“Well, no. “
“That’s it then. They all walk around naked all the time in that comic book. Every issue. No ghost clothes!”
“Wendy the Witch is never naked.”
“Yes, but she ain’t a ghost. The uniform for kid witches is funky red pajamas. But I’ll bet she goes naked as soon as she dies.”
“Do kids in comic books ever die?”
“Well, where did Casper and Spooky and Poil come from if they don’t? They are ghosts.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Yes, I admit it. I was a weird kid. I loved Casper comics because I thought they were practicing nudism. It didn’t bother me that they had no genitals. When you are a kid, genitals are pretty much a nightmare waiting to happen. We might live better lives if we died as kids and became ghosts with no genitals. Of course, civilization would end sooner if everybody did it. I had weird thoughts as a kid. Maybe due to the fact that I was victimized at age ten. But weird thoughts are creative thoughts. And I can create my way out of anything.
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A Space Filler Just to Keep It Going…
This short essay is here to keep my string of consecutive days with at least one post going.
This should be post number 260.
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Drawing with AI Assistance
I find this to be a beautiful picture worth the time spent creating it. It is a digital doodle. That means I started with a simple doodle out of my head.
This is the original start, laid down on my computer tablet with a stylus and a digital art program called Drawing Pad Sketch Desk. It is a simpler drawing program than most digital artists use. My daughter recommends Krita. That is far more complex and sophisticated than I was ready to start with.
This is the rather ugly doodle scratched out with layout colors and basic shapes. Had this been colored pencil on paper, I would have wadded it up, shot it into a wastebasket, hopefully for three points, and started again. But the digital pad allows infinite and complete changes.
After fixing and fixing and fixing… and adding a rose in the hair… and something green to match the eyes, I came up with something I wanted to create a finished project out of. I did not take a screenshot of every little change, so you must imagine how I got here from Miss Ugly Puss.
Because of arthritis in my hands and creeping color blindness in my eyes, I use AI Mirror to reprocess my drawing and offer clean-up solutions. I don’t really like the rose that the program made out of my original drawing, so I changed it before the final. Then I used the Picsart AI Photo Editor to supply a background of roses. Thus, I reached the picture you see in the first Paffooney I posted here.
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NooNooPix
The first picture is a girl in her room with her toys and her fan-fiction novel notebook. Oh, and that puppy was intended to be a toy… but it looks real?
The old picture that fulfills the space in the plan here is a picture of Valerie Clarke and her daddy, Kyle. I also posted this one on Instagram.
Swimsuit girl fills the sexy space today. I get pictures on Instagram where they ask me to draw them.
My poetry book is now available on Amazon. The paperback version will be published soon.
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Today’ Zart
“The Classroom Daydreamer”
“Ceremonial Attendee”
“Twins with their Pet Humans”
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New Pic, Old Pic, New Again
“Dancing in a Dress that Twirls”
“The Princess is Out for a Ride” 1992
“The Girl with Auburn Hair”
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Picsart and AI Mirror
I have paid for a subscription to the Picsart AI App. What you pay for you need to use. So, I am experimenting with it now. I created the above picture with the old method of the digital Drawing Pad app on my computer tablet touchscreen using my electronic stylus on battery power. I then improved the picture by running it through the AI Mirror app to turn what was basically a tracing over a photograph to turn it into an anime-style cartoon.
I used Picsart in Photoshop style to remove the background and place the figure on a new background.
I then used the same figure on a third background. Voila! one small skill mastered.
This one is again using the drawing pad and AI Mirror. I did however draw this skinny dipper myself rather than tracing him from a photo. The background was from a Tap Color Pro puzzle I finished early this morning and drew the figure and bird on top of… also removing the dock behind him. I used AI Mirror only once I had the whole rough draft finished.
I continued fussing with it until I got tired. I was going to manipulate it with Picsart too, but my eyes and fingers got tired, and I had gotten frustrated enough with small finger problems and white lines in the creek that I simply cursed the AI Mirror and ended with this one above. But I have about eight in-between saves where the bird was still a cardinal and I wasn’t satisfied with any of them. AI programs enhance what I can do in digital drawing. And making changes is so simple it spoils me. But the whole process eats up time and energy greedily. And now I am exhausted.
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Catch a Falling Star 