Pretty Pictures

Right up front: this isn’t about valuing or devaluing anything (except AI “art,” which of course gets devalued lol), just a few thoughts.

I recently saw a short anti-AI comic on Instagram that was suggested to me. Basically it was about an artist and an AI “artist” clashing, and in the end both of them had the goal of creating beautiful pictures. The AI “artist” argued that they both have the same goal, only that with them it just goes faster, and the artist replied that they draw because it’s fun. Meaning the entire process that the AI “artist” skipped is actually the core of the whole thing. Well, at its core that’s of course correct and I agree with it. Apart from the fact that pictures have an immensely higher value for yourself when you’ve really put work into them.

But what always surprises me about this kind of thing, and what also seems to be the general consensus: you draw because you want to create beautiful pictures. That’s become the established view, and it’s basically treated as the main goal of artists in general. And in principle I don’t have anything against that either — only personally (!!) I just find it so flat and boring.

When I draw, my goal is definitely not to create a beautiful picture. I’ve never understood drawing that way or seeing that as a driving force. And that is maybe one of the umpteen reasons why I just never fit in anywhere. First of all I rarely draw illustrations anyway. And then I care the least about pure optics. Things like image composition, (which gets mentioned a lot in comments, but which I’ve never even remotely engaged with in my life and tbh don’t even really know what exactly it means), coloring techniques, color theory and all that stuff. Probably basics you learn if you actually study something creative. Which I never did. And I’m someone who vehemently insists on keeping drawing only as a hobby and having taught myself everything. And in the process I mostly followed my intuition. Learning theory, even drawing anatomy studies or anything like that — I never liked that. Meaning this whole technical and ultimately optical part is something that never really interested me.

My goal is actually always to tell something. To express something. That’s why I draw a story and am not an illustrator. And when I do draw illustrations, they belong to the story and are meant to support it. The atmosphere, the characters’ emotions, certain scenes and all that.

So the goal of “creating a beautiful picture” simply doesn’t exist for me. Maybe I’m taking it too literally, no idea. But I find it a shame when artists and AI imitators are supposed to have the same goal in the end. I actually thought that was precisely a massive difference between the two — that the one group really puts feeling into it, wants to tell something, and the others just churn out blunt, meaningless “perfect” pictures.

I know that on social media you see tons of “perfect” pictures. A lot of them just look like “look how great I can draw,” and the figures in turn look as if they’re just standing there saying “look how great I am.” Just simple posing, basically. I don’t know. I also drew that kind of thing for a short while because it went over well, and it completely robbed me of my creativity because it was hellishly exhausting to come up with motifs for it.

As I said, if people like to draw for those reasons, that’s completely legitimate. But personally I find it a shame that this seems to be the overwhelming majority. And of course that’s also what the algorithm prefers and pushes, which is maybe why some people then start drawing more of that kind of thing. I just really miss the point in all of it.

I would so love to see more art with meaning. More art that tells stories, more feeling. I’d also really like dark, questionable or discussable things. Things that pull you in, that make you think. Somehow I’m also tired of seeing all these smoothly polished pictures that just look pretty. Maybe I’m also oversaturated by it, because somehow everything always has to be even prettier, more impressive, technically more magnificent. And on top of that it still has to compete with AI, which just copies exactly that again.

Maybe people want to prove that they’re technically better than AI. I can still understand that. But personally I would simply wish that more artists would make more use of this advantage they have over AI — that they are humans who actually put thoughts and feelings into their work.

And honestly — technical perfection doesn’t interest me at all. I’d rather look at imperfect pictures, even rough, sketchy ones, as long as they have some kind of meaning, tell a story. Are alive.

And as mentioned, this isn’t necessarily about me, since I barely illustrate anyway and admittedly don’t particularly enjoy it either. I’ve said it before, but when someone can really pack meaning, sense, feeling and stories into individual illustrations, I find that highly admirable. Sometimes I wish I could do that, but on the other hand I have to stick to one thing for time reasons and can’t learn anything new, so of course I choose my stories, because those are the most important to me.

But as a viewer it’s also getting harder and harder for me to still find interesting new artists. I would just so love to see more than pictures that are only supposed to look beautiful, sorry for that.