Art as a reward for work done, if you remember ... art, also as a celebration when something wonderful happens. Something just did -- in fact, I'm still grinning like an idiot, as I said to an acquaintance on FB.
We're almost up to the one-year mark after the diagnosis from hell, where I was told my husband of twenty-six years had two years to live if he was very lucky. (Yes, I melted down. Yes, 2025 has been the year from hell.) We have fought this thing very hard indeed, and --
-- after a year of unremitting effort, we've just been informed (by his official neurologists) that in the last three months there has been zero deterioration in his muscle strength, no weight loss, and no change in the "markers" that measure how the condition is supposed to progress from diagnosis to disaster. So ...
... safe to say that the condition has been completely arrested at this moment. Call it remission, if you like. Call it whatever you like, the bottom line is that if we can keep on doing what we're doing, and maintain this status quo, then we can sail on indefinitely until --
Well, you know what we're waiting for. The scientific breakthrough; the therapy that goes into human trials. And Dave is at the forefront of this -- already known locally as the "poster boy" for the fight against this condition -- so that he gets chosen for those human trials. And then the new therapy works.
This is what we're hanging on for, and the truth is (fact!) we're doing it. We must be doing something right because, statistically, 70% of people with this diagnosis are gone in the twelve months after said diagnosis, and life expectancy is 6 - 36 months after the onset of symptoms. Well, Dave is waaay past the three year mark, and he's still eating, talking, walking, driving, riding his bike (pedal-assist ebike: takes a lot of effort; you do not just sit on it and open the throttle. It isn't like a motorbike), he's sleeping well, has a good appetite, he's not losing weight, and he's not losing strength. In fact, I see muscles reappearing in his arms. Oh yes, I'm happy. So --
This is the part where we celebrate, and where I use art to reward myself for work done. And make no mistake, the last year has been effing hard work for me. You have no idea. You don't want to know. And yes, yes, yes, this is AI art. Why? Because I'm too ruddy tired to paint or draw or muck about with DAZ and Bryce and Terragen. Too exhausted. The AI is there to help me. Every bit of imagination is still buzzing around in my mind, and you know full well that in a normal year I would be painting and staging these scenes. At the moment, no can do, and yet --
-- oh yes, the imagination is still in there, and still thriving. So I decided to just stop whining about AI and let the images come out the only way they're going to at this moment. Now, all; (repeat all) of these images have been Photoshopped to squeeze the most out of them after they were generated by Gemini, so there is a two-level creative process. To begin with, you put your vision into the simplest possible form for the AI, which has the intelligence of a toddler with TBI. Something like this:
A fantasy warrior (he can remind you a bit of Aragorn, or something similar), is sitting under an old oak tree, resting, and he is wearing leather and linen costume, and he has long dark hair, and he has a lovely orange and white tabby cat in his lap, and he is obviously really fond of the cat, and it is late afternoon, and the sunlight is golden, and there are sunrays in the background, and the viewer gets the impression of an ancient statue just in the background that is buried in the earth and covered in moss, and I would like the image to be in "landscape" format at 16:9 ratio, and it should look like a really high-quality photo from an expensive professional camera, and the camera is about ten feet from the warrior, and only about three feet above the ground
The AI will get close-ish -- close enough to give you something to work with, then --
...the comparatively flat image is passed right into Photoshop and it is painted and enhanced, and then painted and enhanced some more. So there is quite a bit of artistic creativity in there, not merely the original inspiration, the imagination, and the ability to convey this to the AI in a manner than will get it to come out and play. You can also crop deeply into a lot of these images:
In this one, I've cropped faaar inside the original image, because a Gemini image is BIG, and its level of detail can be astonishing:
So yes, sure: these are AI images. But at the moment, Gemini is saving my artistic spirit. Without it, I would be slogging through life without letting my imagination off the leash at all, which would just about destroy me. I've come to the conclusion that the many people who are raging against AI are screaming into a hurricane. They have a just cause, and I used to scream right alongside them, but look ... no way do I expect to ever earn money from art! It just is. Not. Going. To. Happen. I don't take money for art, so why shouldn't I use AI to keep my creative spirit alive until Dave and I reach the end of our path ... whatever that end is, and wherever the path has led us. Wish us well. It's his birthday tomorrow, too, and just reaching it is an absolute triumph, so I'm smiling -- and celebrating. Hence, art.
