How AI is (Surprisingly) Helping Me Make My Art Practice More Personal

I have always been skeptical and resistant to use AI .

The idea of bringing AI into my creative process was a no go area. I worried that AI would steal from me everything that makes me an artist. That it would turn art-making into a cold, mechanical exchange. That it would replace the rich, messy, human part of creativity with something lifeless and automated. And more than anything, I was afraid it would make my work as an artist feel meaningless.

I only saw the scary part of how some people use AI. A way to create images that are empty and devoid of the hand of the artist. Images that take the role of artist away from humanity. I didn’t want AI to make art for me. And I didn’t see any other way that it would be useful to an artist.

But my perspective is shifting slightly on this. I am learning to use AI as a tool and not a replacement. And this tool is helping me to reach my goal of reconnecting with myself by making more authentic art.

Getting Curious

My aren’t unjustified. We have all seen how AI can be used to mass-produce images and steal other artist’s intellectual property. I don’t want to become someone who hands over the sacred work of art-making to a machine.

But something has begun to shift. I have recently started to use AI not to generate art, but to process my thoughts about my art.

I watched this You tube video by Ali Abdaal about how he experimented with using AI as a life coach. As an avid journal writer and self help/ psychology I am curious about finding new ways to understand myself. I wondered what responses AI would have to some of my journal entries and thoughts. So I began tentatively experimenting with feeding some of my handwritten journal entries into ChatGPT. Then I graduated to journaling directly into it about specific insights. At first, it was just curiosity. But over time it has become something much more useful than I expected.

The Fledgling bird

One recent experience stands out as an example. In the middle of a chaotic shift at work, a fledgling bird waddled and flapped its way into the gallery. After some comedic running around I gently caught the baby bird in my hands and reluctantly released it back outside. I was very nervous about leaving the vulnerable creature to the elements.

Amazingly moments later I saw the mother finding it. She lead it gently around the corner of the building where it joined a host of other fledgling birds. With her whole brood now in tow she led them all into the sanctuary of a thick wall of ivy.

There was something profound in that moment, and it stuck with me, percolating in my thoughts. I wrote about it in my journal and decided to share it with ChatGPT.

Instead of diluting the experience, AI reflected it back to me in the context of my earlier journal entries. It helped me to see some threads and connections that were occurring in my thoughts. It took this little insight into my day and helped me to see why it resonated with me so much.

Instead of taking that moment and creating something from it itself, the AI reflected the experience back to me. It highlighted the ways the experience is resonating with me. It gave me prompts for further explorations in the form of written journal prompts. And it also gave me prompts about how I could further explore these themes in my visual art work.

This has led me to start exploring ways I can integrate my own personal experiences into my artwork.

Connecting the threads

I have countless thoughts and threads spinning in my mind everyday. Half-formed concepts, images, memories, questions, and ideas. It can be overwhelming, and hard to know which threads matter or how they connect.

AI has become a useful tool- a mirror for this process. By externalising my thoughts—dumping them into an AI language model—the AI helps to organise the thoughts and add clarity. It doesn’t give me answers, but reflects my thoughts back to me in a way that brings clarity. It draws out connections I hadn’t seen, helping me spot what’s important.

Using the AI in this way does not make the AI control my art, or make art for me. It gives me more access to my own thoughts and ideas. It clarifies my own thinking so that I can make new connections and discoveries.

Changing my process

Before using AI in this way, I had started to feel like my art was becoming a performance. Making art was turning into something I did for the validation of others rather than for myself. I was losing touch with why I began creating in the first place.

Now AI is helping me to collect and organise my memories, my values and my aesthetic preferences. It’s helping me to make connections between my own life and thoughts. It’s helping me to translate abstract concepts into a visual language that’s personal to me.

It’s made the process of idea generation interesting again. Instead of trying to create something I think other people want, I’m exploring what I actually want to express. And that difference is making me excited to create art again.

Learning Styles

I used to assume that because I am an artistic, creative person that I must be a visual thinker. But through exploring my thought processes with AI I’ve discovered that I’m a conceptual thinker. My ideas don’t come to me in images first—they arrive as clusters of meaning, metaphors, and questions.

AI has helped me to understand how I learn and process information. It’s given me space to write, and explore conceptual ideas without fear of judgment.

I described my brain in one journal entry as a tangled knot of flashing, multi-colour Christmas lights. All these thoughts and ideas and memories flashing and vying for my attention simultaneously. AI is helping to untangle the knots so my thoughts and ideas make more coherent sense. And through this untangling I am beginning to experiment with translating my thoughts into my practical art process.

I have, for a long time, loved the idea of creating my own personal symbolic language in my art. Even though it was something I wanted I didn’t have the right tools to achieve it. It felt too overwhelming and complex a process.

It’s still in its early stages, but through using AI , I can feel this symbolic visual language forming. And it’s so exciting to explore.

To the Curious, Cautious Artist

If you’re an artist who’s curious about AI but hesitant to try it—know that I was too. And I still believe it matters how we use it.

What I’ve found is that AI doesn’t have to replace your creativity. It can help you get closer to it. You don’t have to use AI to offer ready-made answers or to steal your creative process. You can use it to help clarify who you are as an artist and what you want to express.

Start simply. Ask it something you’ve been wondering about. Use it like a sketchbook for your thoughts. Treat it like a tool, not a voice of authority.

Because ultimately, you’re still the artist. The ideas, the hands, the meaning—that’s still yours. Think of AI Like a paintbrush or a sketchbook. AI is just another tool you can use to help you create more authentic, expressive art.


Discover more from Mushroom Moon Designs

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a comment