Like many of you out there in the art community, I’ve been a bit down lately about the state of things in the art world. What with Adobe Photoshop updating its Terms of Service, to allow it to harvest our artwork for its AI, or with Windows updating its Terms of Service to harvest our artwork for its AI, or DeviantArt updating its terms of service to harvest our work for its AI, or Meta updating its terms of service to harvest our artwork for its AI, ….it seems like we might just be in a war with AI.
And as this war has gone on, I have found myself having a harder and harder time wanting to post my work anywhere, or really to use the computer at all for that matter. I have been at a loss for where to go, what tools to use, how to reach people. Everything seems poisonous and predatory.
Then I remembered, “oh wait, I can just use real paint! That’s always there! …and it hasn’t ever poisoned me! (not since I got rid of those cobalts anyway…)” And so I have had some fun this past month dabbling again in real paint, and while I have been at it, I’ve been investigating this new Cara.app platform, in the breathless hope that it might offer a new (and more ethical) home for us. It sort of feels like they are the Rebels, freshly landed on Hoth. Surely the Empire won’t find us here and show up with orbital bombardments and ground invasions… (For now though, these icy caves at Cara are quite inviting, and I hope you will give it a look!)
Anyway, the painting, how’d I do it?:
I painted this in a bit of a desperate fever, so I didn’t record the drawing part of this, at all. But for this painting of the Hippo, I used a Winsor and Newton watercolor travel set, limiting myself to only the earth tones, to first establish a warm underpainting in Yellow Ochre and Raw Umber before laying in some local colors in Sap Green and Synthetic Alizarin. I used Princeton Angled Shaders for the painting, which are not as smooth as something like an Escoda sable, but offer some great shape design and wonderful mark-making. After painting the color in several layers, I used some acrylic white at the end for highlights and rendering, and overall just had a great time splashing around in real paint for awhile. I had a ton of fun and am already looking forward to the next one.
For the time being, particularly since Photoshop has decided to speed run their ethical decent to the bottom, I plan to stay a watercolor warrior for a while. AI is probably here to stay, and giant companies will continue to take our work without our consent, to make fake versions of us with which to replace us in our own industry and community spaces. I think we are in a moment right now where it is worthwhile for all of us in the illustration community to consider deeply what companies we should start divesting from, and start doing it.
-jg
Love the big guy! It seems like artists are going to have to go back to illuminating scrolls in our cloisters if AI keeps infesting everything. Or you know, companies could start acting ethically…? Cara has been great so far, but their operating costs make me worried that sooner or later they’re going to need to rely on big investors and the we’ll all be running from Skynet all over again.
Thanks for sharing. It is hard to think about posting because of how things are being harvested for AI. I guess that makes having a personal website and good relationships with people in the industry all the more important. The struggle is real.
Love what you did with this piece!
Do you use Procreate at all? Or clip studio?
Thank you! I’ve tried Procreate and think its great, but I don’t personally enjoy working on the tablet. I am considering moving away from Photoshop to Krita at the moment.
Nothing to do with AI but you, Jesper Ejsing, Paul Bonner, James Gurney are one of my favorite artists and I am always inspired when I look at the work you do. The more time goes on honestly my fear of AI is going away and I realize just how important artists are to people, and even close friends who were supporting AI now having dipped their toes in art have completely changed their view towards AI and Crypto as well, now advocating even more than me against the use of AI. Also not to mention every time I look at an AI image I can instantly tell that its made by AI(the term AI being used incorrectly by these products is also laughable and sad). As for Adobe I hope this motivates other companies to use this chance to give people a non-AI tool to work with, Adobe has been running the game and doing whatever it wants for a long time. I wouldn’t give up on being an artist, I am still learning and will continue to learn, I am more motivated than ever to become an artist and give it my all, I hope people who work already as full time artist stay strong and keep on keeping on. I hope I get a chance to meet, talk or even paint with some of my favorite artists some day.
It’s important to note that Adobes TOS caused a lot of backlash because of vague language. They have since acknowledged this as basically a misinterpretation and are releasing an updated TOS with better language in the near future. Also the TOS in question has been active since February for what that’s worth.
I also do not trust big tech in general. The landscape is feeling increasingly hostile to creatives. But in this particular case the rumor mill could do real harm, I personally went into a complete tailspin reading this. I would advise folks to research the full story.
Agreed! And I mentioned this thing in greater detail in my last livestream. Perhaps I should have clarified that here, because I agree it is helpful to get the full picture. I did see Adobe’s blog post on the matter and while a blog post and a promise is nice gesture, it holds no real weight legally, so I’m going to wait for that ToS in writing before I believe it. Until then I will be sticking to traditional work and trying out Cara and Krita.
Emil that is super encouraging to hear. Thank you for sharing that.
Adorable.
Thank you, Justin.
What a neat character! I would have never guessed that it was painted in watercolor – especially the step between stage 3 (that looks like a typical airy watercolor) to step 4 (when the color become solid but doesnt look cluttered) is interesting – i would love to see how you approached that.
Love this Hippo and your water color technique. Thanks for explaining and it’s really hard to imagine that it’s been done all with traditional media. Do you use fine liner brushes (like single bristle) for that much detail? I can’t believe I am asking for “what kind of brushes” even for traditional medium.
I am in the same bandwagon where I am also finding it hard to post my work digitally. I do hope Glaze and Cara will make a difference and it can be a light in this dark tunnel. Wacom has started something similar to curb AI thing but it’s hard to explain how it works and their motives to help creatives like us at the moment of writing this. Hope it all works out in the end. Thanks!
Thank you! I don’t use fine liners, but will use 00 or 000 round brushes for some of the highlights. But most of the actual watercolor detail is done with a really nice Escoda sable brush, which holds a really fine point.
Wonderful piece, Justin!
Thanks Nico!