I am having a blast generating a creative piece of art at least once a day as part of a new group I was invited to join of AI artists. The community is active, small enough to feel intimate, and wildly creative. The daily art challenge has been one of the first things I do in the morning and are providing a creative, joyful boost to the start of each day.

My first challenge was to generate something that included pyrography (the art of decorating natural materials by burning designs into their surface with a heated tool.) I am trying to do something unique or that contains a slight twist to challenge myself a little extra. I chose leather as the material, which was different from everyone else’s because they all used wood as their materials. And I featured a black cowgirl. I will note that AI has no idea how to render “chaps” and I had to describe what I wanted in detail. Some of the results were hilarious, but here is the final image I chose to submit.

5/26/26 “Cowgirl”

The next challenge was to create an image that shows a subject both directly and as seen through a lens, highlighting the contrast between raw reality and the captured perspective. The lens could be any type of lens: binocular, microscope digital camera, phone, etc. I knew what I wanted to do right away, but it was harder than I thought it would be. The model did not want to make the alien look into the microscope and wanted to put the inserted close up image in odd places. It took a while, but I finally got something I could use.

5/27/26 “The Specimens”

Then we were challenged to create an image with stained glass in it. Any theme, any style. I was determined to try to create something 3-D and moving. My first ideas were not looking good, but when I decided to try to start working with a flying bird, I was hooked. Each one got more and more beautiful and then I became determined to get the lighting right. The result was gorgeous.

5/28/26 “Flying Glass”

The next day we were challenged to create a version of a property space for Monopoly and include token pieces, houses, hotels, etc. And don’t forget to collect $200. I did not have much luck with creating only one property, so went with the entire game and made it for cats. I honestly kind of gave up on this one because I couldn’t get it to do what I wanted and didn’t have the time to commit to work with the model. It still turned out cute.

5/29/26 “Catopoly”

In honor of National Mint Julep Day, the next challenge was to create a cocktail (favorite, funny, magical, poison, etc.) I am sober and have not had a drink in almost 15 years, so I wanted to do something that would depict a cocktail as gross. The grossest thing I could think of were those Garbage Pail Kids cards that were popular when I was younger.

5/30/26 “Toxic Waste Punch”

And the last challenge of the week was to show something growing from a body, like flowers, vines, crystals, tree branches, light, wings, etc. I knew immediately what I wanted to do. It was really hard. Nothing looked right and I got frustrated with AI being stubborn, but we finally compromised and got something close to what I wanted.

5/31/26 “Growing Stars”

I am definitely going to keep doing these challenges because I’m having fun and enjoying using my creativity at the start of each day.

Here are some of the honorable mentions that did not get submitted, but turned out as pretty cool images: