Notes from an unexpected journey

Nila Krachtin

It was anno 2024 after a dark cold January night of googling for a reference image on antique carved buttons when I came across an interesting website that uses AI for visuals. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about and after much trial and error I ended up with an image unlike anything I had ever seen. It was beautiful, symmetrical, medallion-like, and full of ornate swirls, half botanical, half robotic. A Vulcan queen would have worn it proudly, I thought, while looking at the goosebumps on my arms. There was something there and I needed to explore this further so into the rabbit-hole I went, headfirst and with abandon.

I had found krea.ai, an image generator that is different as it allows for visual input via drawing on a canvas in addition to just the usual verbal descriptions. I had never used AI before and this curious middle-aged student of the enamel arts even feared the lovely iPad I had received, but now I have come to adore it and the iPen that lets me do watercolours or mirror sketching, photo editing, 3D sculpting and telling AI what I love. It just took a little patience and many YouTube tutorials.

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