How to Create AI Art: Your Ultimate Guide

Humans have created masterpieces like Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Frida Kahlo’s Two Fridas, and Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Technology has played a crucial role in major discoveries like novel cures for diseases and calculations to send rockets into space. Combining the power of human creativity and artificial intelligence can help artists generate unique and unexpected ideas and enhance their creative expression.

If you’re looking to learn how to create AI art, one of the best places to start is by understanding what AI art really is, how to use it for your specific goals and how to write powerful prompts.

Understanding AI Art

AI art isn’t always just a computer doing all of the work for the artist. Artificial intelligence can generate color palettes and sketches, transfer an image from one style to another, or be used to create patterns or variations based on original artwork. 

As the artist, you get to decide how big of a part you want artificial intelligence to play in your final piece. If you want to learn how to make AI-generated art so that you can make an instant masterpiece, you can. If you want to just use AI to spark new art ideas so that you can create them with your own two hands in resources like Procreate, you can. 

4 Steps for Creating AI Art

If you’ve ever looked through AI art examples, you might have come across a few bright blue-eyed character portraits, otherworldly creatures and colorfully chaotic scenes from faraway lands. AI art is as unique as the artist wielding its power. You can make AI art in your own style by using an on-brand prompt and by having a strong idea of what your final product should look like. 

1. Enter a Descriptive Text Prompt

Most AI art generators start with a descriptive text prompt. If you were looking to create an image using Midjourney, you might describe the desired setting, main object, artistic style and color palette within your text prompt. 

2. Click "Generate" or a Similar Button

Next, you’ll click the “Generate,” “Submit,” or similar button and the AI will use your descriptive text prompt to create your final work of art. 

3. Preview and Download the Generated Image

It’s likely that the first iteration of your artwork won’t be exactly how you imagined it to be. Try getting more specific with your text prompt or guiding the AI tool away from what you don’t want to see in your final product. Once you’re happy with the result, you can download the generated image. 

4. Utilize Free Credits Offered by Many Platforms Before Purchasing More

Artificial intelligence tools are growing more rapidly than ever. A lot of the newer AI art tools offer free credits to new users. You might try searching for free credits or a reduced credit price before purchasing full-price credits. 

Tips for Writing AI Art Prompts

Finding the best AI prompts will depend on what you want to achieve for your final piece. If you like sci-fi art, you might create a prompt like this: “A surreal landscape with floating cities and bioluminescent trees under a cosmic sky." You can keep the following writing tips and AI art prompt examples in mind as you create your own work of art: 

• Outline your image content by listing the specific objects you want in your image
  • Example: Illustrate a serene coastal scene at dawn with gentle waves, a solitary lighthouse on a rocky cliff, and a flock of seagulls in flight. Capture the soft hues of the sunrise over the water.
• Example: Illustrate a serene coastal scene at dawn with gentle waves, a solitary lighthouse on a rocky cliff, and a flock of seagulls in flight. Capture the soft hues of the sunrise over the water.
• Explain the subject in detail
  • Example: Generate an intricate and wise dragon resting among the ruins of a mystical forest. Highlight the details of the dragon's scales, the play of sunlight on its silver jewelry, and the creature's age and wisdom through its eyes.
• Example: Generate an intricate and wise dragon resting among the ruins of a mystical forest. Highlight the details of the dragon's scales, the play of sunlight on its silver jewelry, and the creature's age and wisdom through its eyes.
• Incorporate pertinent specifics using the five senses and color
  • Example: Design a vibrant and energetic cityscape at night, featuring futuristic skyscrapers using a palette of electric blues, neon purples, and deep blacks. Integrate dynamic light reflections on wet streets and create a sense of bustling urban life.
• Example: Design a vibrant and energetic cityscape at night, featuring futuristic skyscrapers using a palette of electric blues, neon purples, and deep blacks. Integrate dynamic light reflections on wet streets and create a sense of bustling urban life.
• Characterize the form, style and aesthetic of your final image
  • Example: Produce a series of abstract geometric shapes inspired by both technology and nature. Emphasize sharp lines, metallic textures, and incorporate a harmonious blend of cool and warm tones. Strive for a sleek and modern aesthetic.
• Example: Produce a series of abstract geometric shapes inspired by both technology and nature. Emphasize sharp lines, metallic textures, and incorporate a harmonious blend of cool and warm tones. Strive for a sleek and modern aesthetic.
• Specify the composition
  • Example: Craft an antique pocket watch that is suspended in mid-air within a celestial dreamscape. Highlight the intricate details of the watch and its contrast against a background of swirling galaxies and ethereal cosmic clouds.
• Example: Craft an antique pocket watch that is suspended in mid-air within a celestial dreamscape. Highlight the intricate details of the watch and its contrast against a background of swirling galaxies and ethereal cosmic clouds.
• Example: Illustrate a serene coastal scene at dawn with gentle waves, a solitary lighthouse on a rocky cliff, and a flock of seagulls in flight. Capture the soft hues of the sunrise over the water.
• Example: Generate an intricate and wise dragon resting among the ruins of a mystical forest. Highlight the details of the dragon's scales, the play of sunlight on its silver jewelry, and the creature's age and wisdom through its eyes.
• Example: Design a vibrant and energetic cityscape at night, featuring futuristic skyscrapers using a palette of electric blues, neon purples, and deep blacks. Integrate dynamic light reflections on wet streets and create a sense of bustling urban life.
• Example: Produce a series of abstract geometric shapes inspired by both technology and nature. Emphasize sharp lines, metallic textures, and incorporate a harmonious blend of cool and warm tones. Strive for a sleek and modern aesthetic.
• Example: Craft an antique pocket watch that is suspended in mid-air within a celestial dreamscape. Highlight the intricate details of the watch and its contrast against a background of swirling galaxies and ethereal cosmic clouds.

This to Consider When Creating AI Prompts

Writing AI art prompts is your opportunity to infuse your unique creative style into your AI art. While your creative vision is the most important thing to consider when creating your prompts, these tips will help you optimize your experience:

• Choose understandable keywords for AI. Avoid vague, ambiguous, rare or context-dependent language.
• Keep prompts concise. Make sure to stay away from filler words. 
• Employ multiple adjectives.
• Avoid contradictory terms like saying to create a character who is old, but young at heart. 
• Utilize other AI tools for generating prompts like ChatGPT or Bard. 
• Research tool-specific keywords. Since each of the AI art generators works differently, you should do your research to work with them and not against them. 

AI Art Generators to Try

While there is a constant flow of new AI art generators, these are some of the most popular and powerful artificial intelligence platforms you can use for your art. 

1. Dall-E

Developed by OpenAI, Dalle-E uses a descriptive text prompt to generate the desired final product. It uses a deep neural network and a massive dataset of text and image pairs to translate the text prompt into a realistic image. It's known for its high-quality images and hyper-realism. 

2. Midjourney

Midjourney also creates images from text descriptions but in a slightly different way than Dall-E. This AI art generator uses a diffusion model, which means that it starts with a noisy image and gradually refines it until it matches the text description. This process means Midjourney often has more creative and varied results, but it isn’t always as accurate as DALL-E.

3. Leonardo

Like Dall-E, Leonardo.ai starts with a conversational text description. Leonardo.ai is known for its versatility and wide range of settings. If users know how to use these settings, they can create a strong variety of AI-generated art, but they might create more accurate and relevant final products with a more intelligent tool like Dall-E. 

4. Jasper AI

With Jasper AI you’ll write a simple text description that includes any specific keywords you want considered. You’ll then select the mood, medium, inspiration and art style through dropdown menus. Next, Jasper AI will generate your image.  

5. Stable Diffusion

As one of the most popular AI art generators with a free option, Stable Diffusion is an accessible AI art resource. You can go onto Stable Diffusion’s web version and enter a simple text description to create an image. You’ll also have access to some more advanced settings like adding a negative prompt. 

Best Practices to Boost Your AI Art Skills 

Just like any other art form, becoming a skilled AI artist takes time. The more time you spend with different AI tools and you experiment with new ideas, the better you’ll be able to understand how to make the technology work best for you. 

Keep in mind these best practices for creating AI art: 

• Create an effective prompt that clearly explains your vision with strong keywords and descriptors.
• Utilize multiple platforms to find which works best for your style. 
• Explore various art styles and enjoy the process of finding the right tools and techniques for you.

Embark on Your AI Art Journey

Now that you understand how AI art tools work, learned how to write a powerful text prompt and know how to refine your work through multiple AI art tools, it’s time for you to start experimenting. 

If you want even more guidance, Skillshare has the best class selection from beginners to advanced for learning how to use the key AI Art generator platforms. With some practice, your own unique creativity and guidance from the pros, you’ll be on your way to a fulfilling AI art journey.

Written By

Calli Zarpas

Producer & Writer by occupation. Ceramicist & Newsletter Editor by avocation.

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