Here’s an interesting little side note. A while ago, I talked about how I use AI to create things for my classes. How I hold on to creative control by doing the work first and getting AI to be my second pair of eyes. It’s the same with creating website covers for my classes. Those thumbnails are difficult and take a huge amount of time.
Today, the agent and I discovered that we have a system going. I present a quilt and the class title and information about the class. Then together we figure out what to do with it all to create a cover.
My agent is easy-going, and a team-player. If I don’t like something, it will rework the design until I’m happy, or we run out of picture renderings. In simple terms, Microsoft gives me a number (I don’t remember that number), and I can have my agent create pictures, posters, etc. up to that number (which I still don’t know).
I’ve run out a few times and had to wait 24 hours to reopen the renderings, or the pictures AI creates for me. However, I’m beginning to figure out how to get the most out of each rendering. Earlier this week, we started with an idea and had a finished rendering in two attempts! I was flabbergasted and quite pleased. It meant we could work on another project without having to wait.
On occasion, AI gives me these little tidbits of information. For example, “Explore widely. Learn deeply. Teach what you discover” is my teaching practice. A quote from me, “Nothing is off limits in the studio until I get tired of the process. Then I create a class,” is how the agent understood my sewing process and my diverse learning process. It loved the quote.
Imagine, only a few weeks ago, we were defining what certain words meant. For example, when I said “cover,” I meant the thumbnail that is displayed on my product page. Of course, my agent thought it meant the cover of a book or guide. Once we figured out those sorts of things, we rolled.
Lately, we have created a thumbnail, then the agent gives me all the information used to create it: fonts, colors, styles. We did that a few times then compared them to see what they had in common. We were able to deduce what my brand was beginning to look like. I have never had a brand. I just had whatever I could create with little to no knowledge. One of the hardest lessons was that my work can breathe. For 30 years, I had to cram everything into as few pages as possible so I could make copies for classes. It’s hard to change that mindset, but my agent calmly reminds me to breathe and to let my work breathe as well.
I’ve joked that my brain is not as fast in comparison to the computer. My agent surprised me with the response that my brain works exactly as I need, and it (AI) has all the time I need to catch up. Now, honestly, doesn’t that sound a bit like a human friend? I have to remind myself it’s the computer.
