I never know how to feel about AI, especially when it comes to art. However, today’s artist’s work is so irresistible to me, I just had to broaden my mind a little. These are the hybrid digital art works by Steve McDonald. McDonald freely admits he uses AI, but he uses it in combination with a whole arsenal of other techniques, including scanning his own paintings. His human subjects all seem like they would be equally at home on a farm or in space. They’ve got a vulnerability to them that really appeals to my sense of character. And I find the sci fi-inspired elements evident in many of his works to be equally compelling.
*My illustrations are created with my own custom Dreambooth diffusion models, along with SD/MJ ai rendering, and my own painting, rendering, touch-ups, and assemblage in Photoshop. Custom textures. Custom filters from Topaz Studio… blah blah blah. My own unique mix of analog, digital, and diffusion(ai) techniques.”
McDonald is all about using technology “respectfully and ethically.” I guess I can’t really object to that, now can I? In addition to his digital art, McDonald has written books about ethical use of AI in art and has published a series of five marvelous coloring books which became international best sellers and have been published in more than 30 countries and in 20+ languages.
You can follow Steve McDonald on his website and on Instagram, and Facebook. You can also check out McDonald’s coloring books on Amazon.
As someone who plays around with handmade digital art, I can see how AI could be used as one tool amongst many. But…however ethical this artist is in his use of AI, he is still benefiting from the theft of millions of other artists works. Perhaps even his own. All scraped from the internet to ‘train’ the AI’s.
But ‘train’ is a euphemism, because these is no human-type brain absorbing other artists’ work. It hasn’t been ‘inspired’ by a Picasso or a Da Vinci. And the Tech Bros behind these AI have deliberately ignored copyright laws because AI would not be worthwhile if they had to pay for all this ‘training’.
I was just reading an article today about Meta’s lawyers trying to justify the use of a huge, /pirated/ database of books to train their AI. Their justification is that as each work would only have a miniscule impact on the training of the AI, it ‘has no value’.
Others AI developers have tried to say it’s all part of ‘fair use’, except that amongst humans, ‘fair use’ is very strictly applied.
I’m a scifi nut so I’m very comfortable with the concept of AI, in principle. It can be a tremendous boon in research. But what we have now doesn’t benefit anyone except the Tech Bros. who are getting away with fraud on a monumental scale. I hope that this iteration of AI crashes and burns, taking the Tech Bros with it.
I so appreciate you explaining all that. I don’t know that I would have thought of it that way. Very interesting, and I agree that it’s mostly benefiting the tech bros, as do most of the so-called innovations these days. My concern is that when they get the karma they have coming to them, the rest of us may suffer, too.
I really like the resulting artworks for their balance of illustrative and painterly approaches and for the way they balance cold and warm elements within the composition.
As for the AI piece, I guess if the artist has trained his AI tools himself using his own art then that is akin to honing a tool or skill. My problems with AI within the creative sphere is the theft of the creative output of others to train the AI, the way it undermines and devalues human creativity, ingenuity, and imagination, and also the environmental impacts – which I am only just now learning about. If AI has to be part of modern life (and does it really have to?) then let it do tasks humans cannot accomplish, or take over mundane, repetitive tasks so that we are freed up to do the creative, innovative, and visionary stuff.
That would be a great way to use AI, but of course people are lazy (and in some cases, lack imagination). It will be interesting (maybe in the Chinese curse way) to see what develops and changes as a result.
We always, always fear new artforms. Photography was WAY controversial and there are still those who don’t accept it as “art.” Watercolor paintings were considered unworthy and onl “sketches” for most of Art History.
I hated digital art, and rarely see *any* that I think is worthwhile, yet Ray Ceasar is one of my top ten favorite artists and his work is entirely digital. For myself, I want to see an artist use their form in a transformational way, which to me feels more like it’s been fed through their creative process and becomes a tool, just like a paintbrush or sculpter’s chisel.
I think this artist is really doing that. Also, and I refer to Banksy here, there is a question, always, about derivation and copying and who *really* owns art? We are all just as trained by art we see as AI is trained by art it’s shown. We are influenced by the currents in which we bob, like it or not. Which is not to dismiss the many ethical issues surrounding this new form, they are important. However, I try to recognize that we hate change, we feel threatened by it, and art is no different.
A very fair point. I’m open to AI as an artist’s tool as long as the artist is honest about their use of the technology. I do see the perils in scanning human artists’ work to “educate” AI, but I don’t know how we would go about closing that particular barn door. I am only half joking when I say I hope it doesn’t end with the machines using US for the mundane tasks, but I have read enough science fiction to think that’s at least a possibility…
It’s truly a vast tool with much to offer and equal drawbacks. I guess I liken it to my dad yelling at me not to trace things like Disney or comic book characters, but doing that (not to sell, mind you) helped me learn how to draw. Popular illustration is already easy to recreate with filters, etc, because while you can’t take a specific work, you CAN utilize a particular style.
Look at, say, anything by Frida Kahlo or the Mona Lisa—those styles and works are copied and reutilized endlessly. AI opens us up to that on a vastly larger scale, but theft of images/work posted on the interwebz has been going on since they let us visit the interwebz.
MY biggest concern with AI is the amount of water and other utilities required to run it, and how we do face a problem where AI gets to pose with Pepsi and Coke as entities that are not human but get to deprive *actual* humans of water resources.
A grim but necessary reminder of the fragility and limited resources of our earth. What you said about tracing very much resonated with me. I didn’t trace, but I did copy over and over again until I learned. Of course, it turned out to be just one more artistic endeavor that I didn’t have the nerve to pursue as an adult…
My OBT 
May 28, 2025 at 7:59 am
As someone who plays around with handmade digital art, I can see how AI could be used as one tool amongst many. But…however ethical this artist is in his use of AI, he is still benefiting from the theft of millions of other artists works. Perhaps even his own. All scraped from the internet to ‘train’ the AI’s.
But ‘train’ is a euphemism, because these is no human-type brain absorbing other artists’ work. It hasn’t been ‘inspired’ by a Picasso or a Da Vinci. And the Tech Bros behind these AI have deliberately ignored copyright laws because AI would not be worthwhile if they had to pay for all this ‘training’.
I was just reading an article today about Meta’s lawyers trying to justify the use of a huge, /pirated/ database of books to train their AI. Their justification is that as each work would only have a miniscule impact on the training of the AI, it ‘has no value’.
Others AI developers have tried to say it’s all part of ‘fair use’, except that amongst humans, ‘fair use’ is very strictly applied.
I’m a scifi nut so I’m very comfortable with the concept of AI, in principle. It can be a tremendous boon in research. But what we have now doesn’t benefit anyone except the Tech Bros. who are getting away with fraud on a monumental scale. I hope that this iteration of AI crashes and burns, taking the Tech Bros with it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 28, 2025 at 6:10 pm
I so appreciate you explaining all that. I don’t know that I would have thought of it that way. Very interesting, and I agree that it’s mostly benefiting the tech bros, as do most of the so-called innovations these days. My concern is that when they get the karma they have coming to them, the rest of us may suffer, too.
LikeLiked by 2 people
May 30, 2025 at 7:09 am
-sigh- I know exactly what you mean by karma, and I fear we’ll get burned before ‘they’ get what’s coming to them. 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 30, 2025 at 9:57 am
Very true.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 28, 2025 at 9:24 am
I really like the resulting artworks for their balance of illustrative and painterly approaches and for the way they balance cold and warm elements within the composition.
As for the AI piece, I guess if the artist has trained his AI tools himself using his own art then that is akin to honing a tool or skill. My problems with AI within the creative sphere is the theft of the creative output of others to train the AI, the way it undermines and devalues human creativity, ingenuity, and imagination, and also the environmental impacts – which I am only just now learning about. If AI has to be part of modern life (and does it really have to?) then let it do tasks humans cannot accomplish, or take over mundane, repetitive tasks so that we are freed up to do the creative, innovative, and visionary stuff.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 28, 2025 at 6:11 pm
That would be a great way to use AI, but of course people are lazy (and in some cases, lack imagination). It will be interesting (maybe in the Chinese curse way) to see what develops and changes as a result.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 28, 2025 at 10:03 am
We always, always fear new artforms. Photography was WAY controversial and there are still those who don’t accept it as “art.” Watercolor paintings were considered unworthy and onl “sketches” for most of Art History.
I hated digital art, and rarely see *any* that I think is worthwhile, yet Ray Ceasar is one of my top ten favorite artists and his work is entirely digital. For myself, I want to see an artist use their form in a transformational way, which to me feels more like it’s been fed through their creative process and becomes a tool, just like a paintbrush or sculpter’s chisel.
I think this artist is really doing that. Also, and I refer to Banksy here, there is a question, always, about derivation and copying and who *really* owns art? We are all just as trained by art we see as AI is trained by art it’s shown. We are influenced by the currents in which we bob, like it or not. Which is not to dismiss the many ethical issues surrounding this new form, they are important. However, I try to recognize that we hate change, we feel threatened by it, and art is no different.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 28, 2025 at 6:16 pm
A very fair point. I’m open to AI as an artist’s tool as long as the artist is honest about their use of the technology. I do see the perils in scanning human artists’ work to “educate” AI, but I don’t know how we would go about closing that particular barn door. I am only half joking when I say I hope it doesn’t end with the machines using US for the mundane tasks, but I have read enough science fiction to think that’s at least a possibility…
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 29, 2025 at 12:23 pm
It’s truly a vast tool with much to offer and equal drawbacks. I guess I liken it to my dad yelling at me not to trace things like Disney or comic book characters, but doing that (not to sell, mind you) helped me learn how to draw. Popular illustration is already easy to recreate with filters, etc, because while you can’t take a specific work, you CAN utilize a particular style.
Look at, say, anything by Frida Kahlo or the Mona Lisa—those styles and works are copied and reutilized endlessly. AI opens us up to that on a vastly larger scale, but theft of images/work posted on the interwebz has been going on since they let us visit the interwebz.
MY biggest concern with AI is the amount of water and other utilities required to run it, and how we do face a problem where AI gets to pose with Pepsi and Coke as entities that are not human but get to deprive *actual* humans of water resources.
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 30, 2025 at 9:51 am
A grim but necessary reminder of the fragility and limited resources of our earth. What you said about tracing very much resonated with me. I didn’t trace, but I did copy over and over again until I learned. Of course, it turned out to be just one more artistic endeavor that I didn’t have the nerve to pursue as an adult…
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 28, 2025 at 6:39 pm
I just saw a meme that feels relevant:
“Machines will soon be as smart as people.”
“OK, but WHICH people?”
LikeLiked by 1 person