Catch a Falling Star

I have been enjoying my time playing with digital art tools. I bought a stylus to use on my Chromebook computer with the touch screen. My daughter downloaded a Krita digital art program. And my Chromebook summarily broke down. So, everything I am doing now has to be done on my HP laptop with no touch screen. The stylus works on the mouse pad, but not well. And I found another program that will take a drawing that I have done and photographed or scanned and turn that into digital art, refining the lines, color blending, and detail work. I like it, but it is like rolling the dice to get the percentages right for the danged AI painter in the program to accurately recognize anything in my picture.

But the computer art thing is a good thing. There are more than enough bad things this week to fill my baggage. I am alone with the dog at home while the rest of the family is in San Antonio. Grandma (my mother-in-law) was very ill, almost went into hospice care, and then recovered well enough to return home, out of the hospital. They are all visiting her. But I’m not in good enough health to make that trip.

Arthritis, diabetes, and my doctor’s appointment tomorrow for potential skin cancer made it impossible for me to ride in a car in which five people were already travelling. And no room for the dog who loves grandma too, but is not welcome in a car travelling that far.

I have had time to write too, which has been difficult to do with hot weather and arthritis pain in the way. But that hasn’t helped my readership. Viewing of WordPress posts is way down this summer. I have had an uptick in selling e-books, but I am still earning less than ten dollars a month in royalties.

And I have been sleeping poorly at night due to pain and heat. Imaginary granddaughters playing guitar music is not enough to help since it is entirely imaginary.

Does this one look like Shirley Temple? I tried. But not quite.

I am impressed by digital art programs. I had my Chromebook set up for making digital pictures. I learned how much easier it is to lay out light and shadow patterns on your original drawing. Blending colors is so much easier with a stylus on a touch screen. And a stylus is easier to maneuver with arthritic fingers than a colored pencil is. And no amount of eraser curds flying in the air fixes a mistake better than a simple back-up click and redo. But of course, before I could make the process start to fly, my Chromebook decided for whatever reason to commit ritual computer suicide, apparently shorting out during a long walk with the dog.

So, I bought an AI-assistant program to help me convert my colored-pencil drawings into digital pictures. But you don’t have control over details to the degree that you would if you were drawing the whole thing with a stylus. The AI has to interpret everything it sees and render it with properly lit and blended colors trying to mimic the patterns you have presented it with. Of course, the AI is stupid and has to be trained. You can’t just edit the details like the finger damage you see above. You have to adjust the amount of control it has to interpret things the way it thinks is stupidly correct. You adjust from 1% to 90%. O% is the same picture you gave it. 91% and above looks nothing like your drawing. And then you re-create the entire picture again with the new percentage and whatever the AI has learned from your picture.

This one looks more like my version of Valerie, but the AI still has work to do on the background, the box of quilt pieces, and making the girl less anime-cartoony.

This is better. Still not there. But better.

I really like the face and hair on this one. Colored rocks in the box? And I would have to remove the writing on the box with a paint program from HP. In other words, a pixel edit.

This one is the best one so far. That almost looks like quilt blocks in the box. The expression on Val’s face is right for the Snow Babies story.

So, I almost think I need to rush out and buy a new Chromebook with touch screen. I can’t wait to have more control over this whole process. Still, I enjoy noodling with this stupid AI.

I have busily been using an AI program to help me turn some of my drawings and photos into digital art. It is called AI Mirror.

A digital picture of Sasha.

Hamfast Aero Jr. Nebulon boy and Psionic Ninja in training.

My imaginary granddaughter Sienna Beyer.

A self portrait that looks nothing like me. Sorry, I tried three times.

Bedtime for Sienna.

Prinz Flute and the lion man Anghar Khan. The second try.

I am learning, but the program helps more than necessary.