My Cheating Art

Introduction

I am no artist, and I am hardly a writer or musician either but I would describe myself as a creator.

As I have written for Vocal the issue of plagiarism keeps raising its head and sometimes I want to use an image but cannot find the proper way to credit the original creator because it was just found on a Google search.

Discovering The Night Cafe

One way of avoiding the plagiarism charge is to create your own pictures, manually or digitally. There are a lot of AI Image generators that can create an image for you although some people treat this as cheating. I wrote my first piece on this subject below, effectively arguing the Night Cafe generator was just a tool to use. If I wanted a definite image I would have to draw it myself, take a photograph or commission an artist to do it.

I started on Night Cafe and generated some weird images, but the more I tried the odd really good image dropped out and were perfect for the story that I was writing. One of the weird things about Night Cafe is that they give you free daily credits, and while you can pay for extra credits, my free credits more than cover the “cost” of my creations.

These creations can be sold for free as NFTs (Non-fungible tokens which are cryptographic assets on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from each other) but I can’t really be bothered with bitcoin and blockchains.

I upload pictures to various sites but the only one that will take my creations is Pixabay (see my profile below). I allow free downloads for credit but people can send tips via Paypal if they so desire.

Pixabay have now featured two of my images because they were impressed with them, which means I am officially being recognised for the digital art that I have created. I will be happy when I see one of my pieces used by a friend or acknowledged publicly then I can say that I am successful.

I pursue my writing, music and digital art according to these words from the wonderful Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favourite authors.

“People should practice an art in order to make their souls grow and not to make money or become famous. Paint a picture. Write.”

Quote is taken from this site here.

People may criticize and call me lazy for not trying to make money, but I believe that if I am to make money from my art it will be a stroke of luck, and if I don’t I treasure the fact that I have an audience and friends who appreciate what I do.

My Cheating Art

If people do think I am a cheat I can argue that anyone who uses any kind of tool is, therefore, a cheat, but the reality is that they are not. These AI generators are just another artistic tool the same as a paintbrush or pen or sculpture hammer. Without those tools, art could not be created no matter how vivid the artist's imagination is. A painter without brushes or a writer without a pen (or keyboard) cannot adequately express themselves.

I have received much encouragement for my artwork and will continue to produce it and if you want to use it it is yours as long as you tag me.

Using an AI Generator can be frustrating because it has the control not you, but as you use these more and more you will start to get images that will cause people to ask "Did You Paint That?" though no one has asked me that yet.