Abstract

With so many Artificial Intelligence (AI) art generating options now, the death of the artist has been touted on many articles. With Midjourney, DALL-E 2, Craiyon (formerly DALLE-mini), and others, the ability for seemingly anyone to create “art” or designs is at hand, but is this actually going to upend and make art and design degrees obsolete? The proposed study investigates the use of generated digital images from natural language descriptions for use in a traditional studio class. Through an investigation of the strengths and limitations of the new approach to generating content in the creative visual arts, our hypothesis is that such tools will provide new iterative and inspirational models for artists to improve their creative workflow. While text prompts can now generate an unlimited number of AI art, the principles behind art and design will remain necessary. As such, this study proposes a case study in the use of AI-generative art for a traditional studio drawing class. Students were prompted to use the Craiyon art generator to gather inspirational imagery for linear perspective studies regarding interior and exterior spaces. Results of the study indicate that while students found that embedding AI into their creative process positively impacted their final works by providing inspiration for new compositional solutions, the corrections required with regards to perspectival inaccuracies ensured the final version required human interventions and corrections. The study provides a model for other art and design departments seeking to integrate AI into the curriculum through a pragmatic use case and example assignment.