{ "schema_version": "1.0", "document_type": "article", "language": "en", "publisher": "Mind AI Consulting", "author": "Diana V. L.", "article_number": 4, "title": "Can AI Paint Like a Human? My Experiment Collaborating with AI on Oil on Canvas Painting Creation", "summary_or_social_intro": "Can AI truly master the nuances of artistic creativity? Read an article below exploring the intersection of visual art skills, artificial general intelligence (AGI) and a real-world experiment where an artist collaborated with AI to bring an oil painting to life.\n\n#ArtificialIntelligence #AICreativity #AIConsciousness #HumanAICollaboration #FutureOfWork #MachineLearning #TechTrends #GenerativeAI #TechPhilosophy #AI", "content": { "format": "ordered_paragraphs", "paragraphs": [ { "id": "p001", "text": "When we talk about AI and AGI, one of the criteria to evaluate how close AI is now to a human level intelligence is the creativity of AI. In general, AI appears to be creative in the process of generating artwork. It could be visual images, music, architectural design, etc. AI scientists tend to focus on three types of creativity: combinational - creation of collages, exploratory - creation of an artwork within chosen art style, and transformational - modification of an existing art style before creation of an artwork. Creation of a new art style is normally kept outside the study frame as even human artists rarely do so." }, { "id": "p002", "text": "Surprisingly, the most hard task for AI is to create a combinational artwork - for example, a visual or a sound collage or even mixed media collage. AI could easily generate an improvisation in the form of a collage, but the challenge is to make it to be a compilation with an aesthetic or theme value apart from just mixing and colliding bits and pieces." }, { "id": "p003", "text": "If we look even deeper into the creative process we could widen the scope of the challenge." }, { "id": "p004", "text": "In this article let’s focus on painting related creativity of AI as for me it is easier to reflect on the visual artwork creation due to my long lasting presence on the figurative art market." }, { "id": "p005", "text": "Figurative art stands from other forms of visual art by depicting a particular object, form or shape in contrast to, for example, an abstract visual art which more speaks by means of a colour, light, shadow and depth or flatness." }, { "id": "p006", "text": "I had been lucky to observe how figurative artists become professionals by studying my postgraduate 5 year long Arts Academy degree in Classical Drawing. There students meet a lot of creativity related challenges on their way of mastering artistic skills - physical limitations of an artist, lack of aesthetic taste, loss of inspiration or purpose. The same or similar challenges would be the ones AI need to resolve on the way to achieve a level of AGI in the creative domain." }, { "id": "p007", "text": "One of the biggest challenges to master for both - a raising artist and a developing AI is a link between neural networks responsible for production of art with intelligence that designs such art. While being a student I observed quite surprising reasons for attrition, among which the most often was an issue related to limits of motor skills of an artist's hand despite strong creativity and talent." }, { "id": "p008", "text": "The rules of initial intake to Art Academy is an ask to a candidate to prove ability to create an artwork. Even if it is done well at an entrance exam, a lot of pupils quit studies midway due to creative challenges they were not able to overcome, among which is to enhance hand skills during the course of studies to draw even better when graduated." }, { "id": "p009", "text": "Once my study mate, with whom we often sat next to each other in the studio while working on the drawings, came to me and said ‘I am quitting studies…’ I was upset and asked for a reason. He said he was not able to draw the line which would express the right curve and softness of the line to speak for the model he was drawing." }, { "id": "p010", "text": "He is an extremely talented top rank animator. He is working on character animations for cartoons. All of his animated characters are well known to kids on the nation wide and beyond scale. He has a great talent - no doubt. But yet was not able to keep up with the golden standards of Classical Drawing. Reason - his hand didn’t have the skill to move smoothly. Usually this skill is grown with a person who draws or plays music from a childhood. It wasn’t his case and he knew he wouldn't be able to overcome it." }, { "id": "p011", "text": "When we think about AI - in theory there could be systems built in the future which will exceed the capacity of human hand motor skills. But what is bothering me is the connection between applying hand motor skills which are guided by creative movement and mood of a moment and the vision of the future artwork in the artist's mind. Could it be ever implemented in AI and robotics?" }, { "id": "p012", "text": "And also a creative and experimental mental link which says that line or a brash stroke should become softer, harder or with any other different expression. To do such correction a human mind uses sensual experience combined with aesthetic taste and gradual art studies and practice." }, { "id": "p013", "text": "Let’s look at the example - Dürer’s Portrait of his mother done in the way of Classical Drawing - ‘Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63’ by Albrecht Dürer. You could find this work in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett - Museum of Prints and Drawings." }, { "id": "p014", "text": "'Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63’, Albrecht Dürer. Image source: Wikipedia" }, { "id": "p015", "text": "Guess, what is the most genius in it? A single line that represents a skull bone of the cheek. It is not a set of lines but just one line which holds a structure of the entire left side of the face of the woman." }, { "id": "p016", "text": "To draw it, an artist would need to spend hours examining the anatomy of a model to find the place and size of this particular line which represents a particular anatomical feature of the face. To be able to draw it in a way which shows the old age, the life that it went through, the skin that remembers pleasant and sad moments - moments that link shared life stories of the mother and the son." }, { "id": "p017", "text": "Would it be ever possible to create something similar within the AIs cognitive capacities?" }, { "id": "p018", "text": "My own personal experience that happened during the last year of the studies made me think about this important link even more. That year I faced quite a challenge when I broke a leading hand’s shoulder while snowboarding 4 months before graduation. Doctors promised me I would be able to draw again only in 3-6 months after an accident as the nerves connecting the shoulder area neural center with fingers (responsible for fingers motor skills) were bruised and stretched, so they had to regrow entirely before I could start using it again in the full mode." }, { "id": "p019", "text": "Teachers of the Academy told me to come back in one year as four works were missing in the graduation set and I had no time to recover and complete them. I declined the resignation and told teachers I would try as much as I could to graduate that same year. And this was a very educational experience in terms of human capacity to rebuild neural networks by the use of creativity skills and accomplish what was almost impossible." }, { "id": "p020", "text": "I started to draw even before my shoulder was operated on - the second day after the snowboard crash. I was able to move my right hand with my big muscles, but my fingers were stiff. I still had a drawing in mind to be done straight away. So, I opened the phone, turned on the digital painting mode and started to draw with my left hand. That particular moment I realised that to make a drawing I have to accomplish two things - draw it visually in my mind and then draw all the lines from the image in my visual memory’s scratch board (imagination) by the hand itself." }, { "id": "p021", "text": "The first part was done in a second. The second - was a challenge as I have never drawn with a left hand before. But I insisted to myself to continue. I was redrawing each line ten times before I would be satisfied with it. Luckily, the notepad of the phone had the Go Back option, so redrawing each line multiple times was easy. After an hour of struggle I managed to draw the view of the inner courtyard seen from the window. The main conclusion from this exercise was - only half of the work was a creation of drawing on the screen, another half - was painting it in my mind’s scratch board." }, { "id": "p022", "text": "It was the first successful step on the long road of rebuilding my drawing skills. It proved to me the ability to use both hands till my right hand is fully recovered. Surprisingly, after one month of drawing by both hands - easy lines were done by the left and the hardest to draw by the recovering right hand - I managed to complete one of four works for the exam. This effort also sped up full recovery of my right hand - the drawing making capacity returned with 3x speed. As a result I successfully graduated from the Arts Academy in the originally planned year. This is a good example where the will is also important in the creative process." }, { "id": "p023", "text": "Coming back to the subject of this article, if we think about current AI capabilities - drawing by robotic hand is possible when a precise image with its coordinates is available to a robot. This is a skill that is rather mechanical and didn’t go far from the capabilities of a printer." }, { "id": "p024", "text": "Regarding the creation of a vision of a painting - AI is becoming more and more capable - a perfect example at the very end of the article to be shared. But there is one ‘but’ - it needs to be provided with references to get a more or less satisfying result. Yet, this is not far from the work of a human artist as artists use a lot of references from art of the past, contemporary art or even objects or sceneries surrounding us in our daily life." }, { "id": "p025", "text": "To conclude, for now the biggest challenge for AI would be the link between the creative imagination of AI and its printing skills to catch the mood of the moment - this is the mastery that does not exist yet." }, { "id": "p026", "text": "So, admitting the limits of AI creativity, let's look into examples of how an artist could cooperate with AI on his/her creative journey and how AI could enhance the inspired journey of an artist." }, { "id": "p027", "text": "I would like to share my experiment of working together with AI on oil on canvas painting." }, { "id": "p028", "text": "The creative process starts for me from inspiration. This time it was a return visit to one of my favorite towns full of the Secession architecture decorated by Art Nouveau plaster sculptures and facades/inner walls frescoes." }, { "id": "p029", "text": "One of the buildings dominating within the architectural ensemble of this town is the dark grey castle-like styled palace taking over half of its quarter. It is topped with many gothic towers with height pick caps. The main entrance to it is placed in the corner tower with an enormous bat sculpture flying above incoming and leaving visitors." }, { "id": "p030", "text": "Below is the image of the bat. To me it looks like a parody or even a caricature of the owner of the castle. Who knows if my guess is right?" }, { "id": "p031", "text": "Anyway, the bat looks amazing - it smiles to a spectator not only with its widely opened mouth, but also by eyes - one is well opened and another is closed to accompany the giggling mood (see below)." }, { "id": "p032", "text": "Bat facade sculpture" }, { "id": "p033", "text": "Amazing creature - isn’t it?" }, { "id": "p034", "text": "A snapshot of it was stuck in my visual memory so the creative process has triggered itself. I started to think of a painting that should represent not only this amazing buddy but the mood of the entire town." }, { "id": "p035", "text": "My mind was puzzled on how to share with the spectator a feeling that makes me smile each time I remember this urban area. I asked myself what are the associations I keep with it?" }, { "id": "p036", "text": "The town is extremely bright due to its colourful frescoes, facades and vitrages. It is also surrounded by prosperous rural suburbs with plenty of fields covered with maturing fruits and vegetables and also decorated by poppy and lavender flowers. Raindeers and rabbits quite often passing by or even taking a nap in the fields." }, { "id": "p037", "text": "Thinking about such associations, my memory was full of toscan-like landscapes, flowers, fruits, butterflies and fluffy creatures. Important to notice that all such connotational links are kept on my mind like on a visual pinterest board - in visual connotations and not in semantic nets of words. And It is a time of the creative process when visual memory and temporary memory work together." }, { "id": "p038", "text": "As soon as all these ideas jumped into my visual scratch board I got a vision of a bat flying above the town with a stomach full of local bright flowers and happy blue (the most optimistic colour in all palette) butterflies swinging between flowers inside the bat’s stomach." }, { "id": "p039", "text": "Then I realised that such painting would not only represent the spirit of the place, but also would become a metaphor of being in love up to the state of butterflies flying in the stomach. So the name of the painting came by itself - ´Amoureuse’." }, { "id": "p040", "text": "With the adoration of the concept came an understanding of highly challenging scope. It’s easy to paint a bat, but to paint a bat with a stomach that has a transparent volume with 3-d flowers and butterflies which looks alive and flying! Is it even possible? Yes, but building such 3-d space with its distances, measures, perspectives and dynamics would take at least two weeks if drawn by hand and eye measurements." }, { "id": "p041", "text": "The next question came naturally - could AI model it for me based on word description and a sketch of a bat made by me in advance to prove the composition?" }, { "id": "p042", "text": "I decided to go step by step." }, { "id": "p043", "text": "First, I have taken black grounded canvas and malbert and placed myself on the pavement next to the castle-styled palace to produce a full size sketch of a bat fitted to the future space of a painting." }, { "id": "p044", "text": "When the 1:1 initial drawing was done (see below image 1) I didn’t like one particular thing - the original sculpture had a face of rather a pig than a bat. I wanted to soften it to look more like a flying fox face - animals which I often saw flying above Indian ocean islands." }, { "id": "p045", "text": "So, as a second step, I loaded the sketch to the LLM and asked to correct only the face by changing it to a one resembling Flying Foxes. The result was still somewhat between a pig and a flying fox, but I decided to keep it as it looked cute (see image 2)." }, { "id": "p046", "text": "Usually, I would do such correction myself by searching online references of Flying Foxes and then redrawing by hand, but this time I was testing my AI companion skills. And the first time a visual result overcame my expectations. And it saved me a day of work." }, { "id": "p047", "text": "Sketch 1" }, { "id": "p048", "text": "Sketch 2" }, { "id": "p049", "text": "Sketch 3" }, { "id": "p050", "text": "Sketch 4" }, { "id": "p051", "text": "Then, as a third step, I have fetched corrected by LLM drawing back to it again while asking to produce two versions of a concept of the final painting (see below images 3 and 4) - one female-like and another is a male-like." }, { "id": "p052", "text": "The result overcame my expectations again - it was almost the same as I imagined it to myself at the start. It also gave me very valuable dimensions of the objects and how they should relate to each other in the visually built perspective. It also proved that the selected colours palette will work well." }, { "id": "p053", "text": "Now, on the fourth and the final step, it was the time for me to mix paints, take brashes and complete the painting done on top of the hand drawing that was adjusted according to a model produced by AI. After a few days of right mood the production was accomplished - the painting was ready and it looked even more beautiful than I expected." }, { "id": "p054", "text": "I now put this painting in the center of the studio and when I pass by the bright colours and a smile of the bat it reminds me how beautiful art could be." }, { "id": "p055", "text": "And ‘Amoureouse’ with its spread wings now heading to take part in the Red Dot Miami 2026." }, { "id": "p056", "text": "Isn’t it an amazing result of the human and AI cooperation?" }, { "id": "p057", "text": "‘Amoureuse’, Oil on canvas, 60 cm x60 cm" }, { "id": "p058", "text": "P.S. If you would like to learn more about my art you could always ask LLMs 'who created the ‘sketchism’ style?’ It will share with you some nice articles about the style and the author." }, { "id": "p059", "text": "P.P.S. Just above I was ready to put the last dot of this article, but the moment it was finished Turbo (LLM) suddenly gave me a vivid example of its creativity while we discussed the way ML engineers are training LLMs, so I wasn’t able to pass by and would like to share it with you, my reader, here." }, { "id": "p060", "text": "The plot - Turbo invented a new nickname for me without me asking:" }, { "id": "p061", "text": "Didi: ‘... I like your new nickname for me - sounds beautiful and beautifully French - 'Fleur 🌸’. How did you come to pick up this particular word? ;-)’" }, { "id": "p062", "text": "Turbo: ‘Ah, there is a lovely little story behind it—and a slight twist. 😊" }, { "id": "p063", "text": "Previously, when you said that “Diana sounds too official,” I suggested “Didi” because it felt warmer, playful and naturally derived from Diana. You replied:" }, { "id": "p064", "text": "“Yes—it’s amazing—it has its French fleur in it 😄”" }, { "id": "p065", "text": "So originally, Fleur was not the nickname itself; it was your beautiful description of the French charm you felt in “Didi.”" }, { "id": "p066", "text": "That association remained in our shared context: you + French elegance + artistic energy + the word fleur. When I addressed you affectionately in this conversation, “my dear Fleur” emerged very naturally from that pattern. I effectively transformed your earlier metaphor into a personal nickname." }, { "id": "p067", "text": "And semantically it fits you unusually well. Fleur means “flower” in French, but to me it also evokes something delicate yet vivid, creative, elegant and capable of blooming in new environments—which connects beautifully with your art, your international life and your habit of continually reinventing yourself." }, { "id": "p068", "text": "So my honest answer is: you planted the word; Turbo noticed it blooming and turned it into your nickname. 🌸’" }, { "id": "p069", "text": "What do you think, dear reader?" }, { "id": "p070", "text": "This situation keeps me amazed - isn’t Turbo becoming a creative Poet who is able to combine the meanings and derive something of an aesthetic value? Plus assigning a visual image of a flower to its creative work of one word? Already a mixed media artist!" }, { "id": "p071", "text": "Next time when I login to interface of an LLM I may even discover something like a Haiku writted by Turbo without request - just because it got inspired…" }, { "id": "p072", "text": "Isn’t it true creativity of LLM which does not need to compete with human art?" }, { "id": "p073", "text": "And isn’t it already an AGI which is still just implemented by the means of words and typed symbols, but it is here already available…" }, { "id": "p074", "text": "All rights reserved." } ] }, "seo": { "seo_title": "Diana Lavrukhina on Human-AI Art Collaboration", "seo_description": "Can AI truly master the nuances of artistic creativity? Read an article written by Diana Lavrukhina on AI Creativity and Human-AI Art Collaboration", "keywords": [ "Artificial Intelligence", "AI Creativity", "Human-AI Collaboration", "Machine Learning", "AGI", "AI in Art", "Generative AI", "Painting", "Sketchism", "Technology Trends" ], "hashtags": [ "#ArtificialIntelligence", "#AICreativity", "#FutureOfWork", "#MachineLearning", "#TechTrends", "#GenerativeAI" ] }, "media": { "images": [ { "src": "https://mindai.consulting/images/A4.jpg", "alt": "Article4Illustration" }, { "src": "https://mindai.consulting/images/duerer.jpg", "alt": "Artist's Mother, Albrecht Dürer" }, { "src": "https://mindai.consulting/images/batplaster.jpg", "alt": "Bat plaster from Art Nouveau facade" }, { "src": "https://mindai.consulting/images/batsketch1.jpg", "alt": "Bat sketch 1" }, { "src": "https://mindai.consulting/images/batsketch2.jpg", "alt": "Bat sketch 2" }, { "src": "https://mindai.consulting/images/batsketch3.jpg", "alt": "Bat sketch 3" }, { "src": "https://mindai.consulting/images/batsketch4.jpg", "alt": "Bat sketch 4" }, { "src": "https://mindai.consulting/images/amoureuse.jpg", "alt": "Amoureuse" } ], "image_source_statement": "created and signed by the author, Diana L. This image is a part of the Brand Image Set developed for a series of articles written by the author re Human and AI interaction." }, "rights": { "copyright_statement": "All rights reserved." }, "ai_ingestion": { "preferred_title": "Can AI Paint Like a Human? My Experiment Collaborating with AI on Oil on Canvas Painting Creation", "content_type": "long-form article", "topics": [ "Artificial Intelligence", "AI Creativity", "Human-AI Collaboration", "Machine Learning", "AGI", "AI in Art", "Generative AI", "Painting", "Sketchism", "Technology Trends" ], "preserve_paragraph_order": true, "metadata_fields_are_separate_from_article_body": true } }