My eyes, My eyes

I haven’t talked much about AI. I feel like everyone else is doing it, and me contributing, won’t change anything. But then last week I got tired and so I’m joining the conversation.

The part that interests and worries me the most is naturally the generative AI and the AI world of imagery and visuals. For some time I chose to ignore the fact of Ai conquering all the aspects of our life, cause to ‘freeze’ is my chosen strategy towards many problems (that’s why I suspect I might have been a goat in my previous life).

But honestly I think pretending like AI is not there, and thinking that if you ignore it long enough, it’ll go away, won’t help you. Neither will using it for every single thing possible. AI is here to stay and change our lives in a major way. So maybe the issue now isn’t that everyone and their mother is using AI. Maybe the problem is how they’re using it?

I wrote this short Linkedin post the other day, after getting very fed up with seeing AI slop on every corner, both in real life and online. Briefly, my post was about how using cheap AI-generated visuals can backfire, and harm you and your brand. The real damage isn’t just looking budget-conscious, it’s signaling a lack of taste and attention to detail, which drives away exactly the higher-value customers the businesses want.

If art and what we as artists do, is supposed to serve a purpose of elevating taste and visually educating and improving the sense of aesthetic of whoever is on the receiving end, the “AI artists” (oxymoron) are doing just the opposite. In the few comments I received under my Linkedin post, an interesting observations were brought up of how the widely accessible and careless AI image generation is really exposing our lack of taste…

It’s impossible for me, in this case, not to think about the years-long discussion of how art education in schools has always been this neglected, unserious subject where you get easy A’s for gluing two noodles together. Everyone always assumed art was my favorite subject in school, but between you and me, I hated it.

Gluing anything together isn’t that fun. Neither is painting newspapers in primary colors to make a hat. Then again, maybe that’s exactly how all the impressive math-brain people feel when they watch me trying to calculate where two stupid trains will meet…

Anyway, if our work as creatives is to build visual worlds born from years of “eye training” and help elevate and improve consumers’ taste, AI storms onto the field like Godzilla, flattening everything in its path.

Is it just the matter of en experienced, well trained eye, that’s able to tell the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’, and the ‘quality’ from ‘crappity”? Has gluing dry noodles failed public education system? I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts about this, let me know in the comments. I’ll be back talking about AI soon, cause I’m tired.

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I have a new website. Again.

If you’ve been keeping me company for some time, you know every two years (at least) I go through a total website refresh. My husband is the one behind it, and I guess that’s one of those fields where his ADHD shines:) I still have some work to do when it comes to adding more images of my work, bumping up the quality of some drastically downsized ones, and taking some more photos of my projects, but that’s on it’s way.

So what’s there right now? My portfolio, a look at how I work and what I do, and maybe most exciting for you, my brushes and digital tools have a special nook on there. If you’ve ever wanted to paint with the exact tools I use, this is your chance to grab them.

Go have a look, poke around, and let me know what you think!

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Book two is happening! At this point the full book is written, the storyboard is done, and I’m deep in what is honestly the most exciting and consuming part of the whole process: illustrating it. Page by page, spread by spread, character by character.

If you’ve ever wondered what it actually takes to make a fully illustrated book, the layers of decisions, the planning, the conceptualization - I will share some materials when the book is out. The storyboard alone tells a whole story about how this kind of work comes together, and if there’s interest, I’d love to walk you through it.

CHECK OUT THE UNIVERSE

But for now, what I can tell you about book two is this: it’s in full color! After The Ritual of Light monochrome setting it’s time for lush, deep, forest greens. And, two main characters instead of one. A world that feels bigger and wilder than before.

As things take shape, I’ll be adding little glimpses here, animated bits, and drafts from the world I’m building. While we wait for those, the Mugo gifs are already out there so go grab them, use them liberally, send them to people who need a little magic in their day. Check out https://giphy.com/mugosuniverse

In the meantime, if you haven’t met Mugo yet, there’s no better moment. The Ritual of Light, the first book in the series, is available now, as paperback, hardcover and a kindle edition.

It’s monochrome, it’s quiet, it’s magical, perfect for cool summer evenings (if you have them).

The Ritual of Light is the perfect place to start before things get a lot more colorful!

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