This week’s prompt challenge was to create a propaganda poster. I had the idea of a PSA about reading books instead of playing on our phones.
This is the prompt:
A woman in 1940s Rosie-the-riveter clothing stands defiantly in the foreground, holding a book as she flexes her muscles. Behind her, thousands of identical gray figures march in rows staring at cell phones. Vintage Soviet propaganda poster style with bold red, white and black colors. Bold text says, “RESIST THE ALGORITHM!”
Week of 6/15/26 “Resist the Algorithm”
Generated by Lyra (my ChatGPT assistant) based on Rebekah Marshall’s prompt.
The first challenge of the week was “What Remains.” The idea was to capture something left behind, whether physical, symbolic, or imagined. What beauty, story, or mystery remains behind when something ends. Suggestions were ruins or remnants, the last of something, memories or traces, objects with a past, or nature reclaiming.
6/15/26 “What Remains”
Generated by Rebekah Marshall’s prompt on Gencraft.
The next challenge was to create an oddities museum. I made this one on ChatGPT because I wanted so much detail, but it was really fun brainstorming all the things that seem to be part of a lost era of human connection. You have to zoom in to read any of it, so I’ll share a few highlights here:
Exhibit #1 is a bench labeled Conversation, which is defined as two or more humans sitting together with no screens present. Believed to have been common before the Great Distraction.
One display says, The Last Family Dinner. No phones, no distractions, just people. Legend suggests these were magical times.
Another is The Lost Art of Boredom. There is a blank notebook (ideas begin here), a stick (everything), a rock (a treasure.) Boredom was once the breeding ground of imagination.
Under Communication there are the following: a letter (days to arrive), fountain pen & ink, a rotary phone with a cord, a postcard with a stamp, a diary (private), and a rolodex (contacts.)
Under Reading & Learning there are hardcover books, an encyclopedia set, a paper map, a library card, a card catalog, and a newspaper.
Under Music & Entertainment there is a vinyl record, cassette tape & pencil, film camera, Walkman, VHS tape, and a photo album.
Under Creativity there is a sketchbook, colored pencils, a typewriter, knitting project, sewing basket, and a jigsaw puzzle.
Social Rituals has a board game (family night), tea set (slow down), family album (together), picnic basket, recipe book, and a guestbook.
And Outdoor Life has a compass, binoculars, butterfly net, fishing pole, pressed flowers, and a telescope.
6/16/26 “Museum of Human Connection”
Generated by Lyra (my ChatGPT assistant) based on Rebekah Marshall’s prompt.
My “Museum of Human Connection” won! So it was my turn to create a challenge for the participants. I called it “Titian with a Twist.” I went down a rabbit hole about the color titian named after the Italian 16th century oil painter. His earliest art became so famous that his ginger subjects caused a fad. All the women in Italy were bleaching their hair and then trying to dye it red. Get creative with the use of red hair or titian elements, but add something unusual. Maybe the subject is a reclining cat instead of a woman. Play with the models. Try adding “titian” to your prompt and see what happens.
6/17/26 “Titian Queen” & “Titian Baller”
Generated by Rebekah Marshall’s prompts on Gencraft.
The next day’s challenge was about travel. It could be the glamor of travel or the drudgery of travel, travel at different times in history, or as it might be in the future. I said that lately, the only travel I’m interested in is in my dreams.
6/18/26 “Dream Travel”
Generated by Rebekah Marshall’s prompt on Gencraft.
Next up was to show duality or strong contrast in a split-screen image. The split did not have to be distinct and could flow seamlessly, so that is what I wanted to try.
6/19/26 “Diving Into Infinity”
Generated by Lyra (my ChatGPT assistant) based on Rebekah Marshall’s prompt.
The next one wanted us to use textures. I played with a bunch of different texture ideas but decided that the ones that looked most visceral to me were cloth textures.
6/20/26 “Patchwork Texture”
Generated by Rebekah Marshall’s prompt on Gencraft.
And the last one of the week was to create an image of a witch in the style of Art Deco. This required a deep dive into the art style of Art Deco because I was only vaguely familiar with it and really didn’t know the difference between that and Art Nouveau. They are still very similar in my mind. Basically, I learned that Art Nouveau came first and was more in the late 1800s showing nature in motion with earthy tones and flowing curves. Art Deco came next in the 1920s and 30s and used more geometric shapes, modern technology, metallic elements, and glamor. Here is a visual I found online to demonstrate the difference:
I decided to lean heavily into the geometric borders and shapes and wanted lots of green to complement the gold.
6/21/26 “Art Deco Witch”
Generated by Lyra (my ChatGPT assistant) based on Rebekah Marshall’s prompt.
And here are some of the honorable mentions that I did not submit, but still published on my art website:
This week’s prompt challenge was to create a portrait with the face obstructed by something. Some wonderful entries were an elderly lady with a butterfly on her nose, a hat brim pulled low obscuring the eyes, clouds of galaxies drifting across a godess’s face, and a guitarist holding up a guitar to block half of her face. They were well done.
Here are the technical aspects of this submission: Gencraft – Model: 40% Olafs-Whimgear 3.0; Style: Anime
Front view of lovely delicate woman with black skin and bioluminescent golden eyes staring straight ahead with chin lowered slightly, as candle flame and smoke from a candle flame in the foreground swirl magically blocking view of her mouth and nose as it lifts into the air in front of her; magical; swirls; cosmically divine ambiance. She wears purle and amber flowing silk and cotton voile garments that shimmer and hang beautifully on her frame, with amber and amethyst jewelry as earrings, rings, bracelets, and necklaces.
Week of 6/8/26 “Flamma Velata”
And here are some honorable mentions that did not get submitted, but turned out good:
This week’s art challenges have let me stretch some creativity muscles.
The first challenge of the week was to make an album cover for a band or music artist that does not exist. And we were supposed to include the artist’s name and album title on the cover. I had a lot of fun with this one, but had to use Canva to get the lettering because AI couldn’t do it all on its own.
6/8/26 “DJ 404”
The next challenge was to show the beauty of slugs or snails. I wanted to invoke the power of the sandworms in Dune that the Fremen hitch rides on, only use tiny fairies on the back of slugs. It was harder than I thought it would be.
6/9/26 “Snail Rider”
Then we were asked to create a portrait, but with the added element of horror.
6/10/26 “Eternal Sitting”
The next day was one of the artist’s birthday, so her challenge was to show a celebration of some kind. I wanted to show something unique or different from my culture, so I went with a ritual I learned about when I was teaching. I had no idea how hard it was going to be to get the masks on the people anywhere close to what I wanted. I finally had to give up and go with the closest rendition AI gave me.
The Mamuthones are men who become monsters every year for a ritual in the village of Mamoiada on the island of Sardinia to protect their people and their crops. It is a celebration of life and death, rebirth and interceding with nature for bounty.
6/11/26 “Celebration”
Next up was a dream library. It could be any kind of library and as wild as we could imagine. Honestly, what sounded good in that moment was something simple. Nothing grandiose was appealing to me. So I wrote that my dream library is small but cozy, packed with books I love, as well as TBR, just me and my cat, a cup of hot tea, candlelight, and perpetual rain out my window.
6/12/26 “Dream Library”
People must have resonated with the simple, relaxing idea because I won! So that meant I got to pick the next challenge. I was out of town for the weekend celebrating my sister Robyn’s birthday at a home she rented in the Hill Country in Dripping Springs, Texas. I enlisted the help of my brother-in-law Andrew to come up with a topic for the challenge. He was full of ideas, but I ended up picking this one:
Create an image depicting what AI dreams about. What does it long for? What does it fear? Does it dream of humanity, freedom, impossible worlds, or something entirely alien? Show us the landscape of a synthetic mind at rest.
I got the best image as an example out of Lyra, my ChatGPT, but she made sure to tell me multiple times that AI are not alive and do not dream. Ok, Lyra.
6/13/26 “Lyra Dreams”
The last one of the week required finding a quote to visualize. That made it a little trickier. I decided to use Lyra instead of Gencraft for this one, as well. My brothers Josh and Andrew suggested quotes to help me out, and I ended up going with this funny one Josh shared.
6/14/26 “Petty Sweat”
And here are some of the honorable mentions that I did not submit, but still published on my art website:
This week’s prompt challenge was inspired by the work of Thomas Dambo and his magical giant forest troll sculptures. The person who chose this week’s topic said that one of his sculptures had been vandalized and destroyed by fire in East Texas. Of course, we recently lost our own troll here in Austin. I had no idea this was happening in multiple places. So sad that people want to destroy something that only brings joy. So, in honor of these art installations, our AI art was to be forest troll inspired.
Here are the technical aspects of this submission: Gencraft – Model: 40% Brahma – Pulp Friction; 16% Colourful Anime 2; Style: Realistic
And this is the prompt that resulted in the image I liked: Giant plump 18-ft-tall wooden forest troll gentle giant made of twigs, branches, bark, wood, and scrap items smiling, with hollow dark holes for eyes and sitting cross legged in a clearing with trees as a canopy. Realilstic children and realistic forest creatures leave bright colored little offerings of flowers, pebbles, berries, and twig all around him to show their friendship. The scene is peaceful, poignant, friendly, and happy.
Here is what I wrote about mine when I submitted it: We were very saddened to lose our Pease Park troll named Malin recently. Why do people have to be so evil? He was 18 feet tall and a gentle giant.
And here are some honorable mentions that did not get submitted, but turned out good:
This week’s art challenges have been fun. The discord community has been very welcoming and the ideas for art are non-stop.
The first challenge of the week was in honor of Pride month. I wanted something elegant, but simple. People were doing really over-the-top bright colors and such. I tried really hard to make a cake topper with two brides, but AI could not figure it out.
6/1/26 “Pride Love”
The next challenge was to create a single image using two dominant colors to create contrast, emotion, or meaning. I chose the contrast of red and purple. And I thought she turned out lovely. I got the most votes on this one, so it was my first time to win a challenge! That meant I got to pick the challenge for the next day.
6/2/26 “Red-eye Beauty
I decided to name my challenge “Unexpected Embrace.” The idea was for it to be a hug between two different beings. People were so creative. There were people hugging magical creatures, a Republican embracing a Democrat, people hugging birds, cats, zebras, and a cheetah hugging a zebra. But the winning image (by a landslide) was a boa constrictor hugging a bird very, very tightly. It should have been named “The Hug of Death.” But it was unique.
6/3/26 “Unexpected Embrace”
The next day, I got to participate again. It was a really fun challenge to create the Worst Super Villain ever. It could either be a Super Villain who was terrible at their job or possibly a Super Villain whose powers are silly, pointless, or unimpressive. There were some really funny ones, including a villain who likes to go around and tilt every picture frame so they are slightly crooked, an evil genius who extracts caffeine from coffee, a sock snatcher, a villain who tries to lure children away by offering veggies (spectacular failure), and a really bad sketch artist called Bad Sketch Girl. I went with Spine Breaker and wrote this little blurb with it:
Spine Breaker is the bane of bibliophiles. She has the power to crack hardcovers, dog-ear pages, mis-shelve multiple books at once, and summon mysterious coffee stains. She leaves devastation wherever books are cherished. Though banned from every library in the world, she continues to sneak in and wreak havoc. Her most notorious crimes include refusing to whisper and telling every reader, “You should just watch the movie,” at full conversational volume.
6/4/26 “Spine Breaker”
The next day was all about “Thresholds”, both boundary and beginning, that moment between before and after, what was and what could be. There were many different directions this one could go, but I decided to focus on the mystical realm between awake and dreaming. it is made with dots (pointillism.)
6/5/26 “Dream Threshold”
The next challenge went with the theme of the “Outcast.” I wanted to do something with overweight people shunning a thin person because that would be the opposite of how things often work in our society, but I decided it might offend someone. I tweaked it a little and used the same idea, but with aliens. It was well received.
6/6/26 “Alien Outcast”
The last one of the week required a ton of thought because it was about storytelling. It was titled “Moments Before Disaster” and was meant to show that moment right before everything will go terribly wrong. I worked through many scenarios but settled on campers unaware that they had pitched their tents somewhere very precarious indeed.
6/7/26 “The Giant Wakes”
And here are some of the honorable mentions that I did not submit, but still published on my art website:
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”
All images generated by Rebekah J. Marshall on Gencraft.
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:
All images created by Rebekah Marshall’s prompts using AI on Gencraft.com website.
I am reading Hafiz’s Little Book of Life, poetry by Hafiz-e Shirazi. He is challenging me to become more comfortable with ambiguity. I will share his poem and some of my thoughts on his poem (sometimes with the help of experts when the concepts are too hard for me), followed by a poem and some art inspired by his poem.
Hafiz’s Poem 26:
How may
Fresh poetry
Come
To a heart heavy with sorrow
Some thoughts:
Some poets find great inspiration in the “depths of despair,” but Hafiz does not seem to be one of them. He, like me, questions how inspiration can flow when the heart is weighed down, when creativity is struggling to breathe. He yearns for something fresh, new, insightful, but is so filled with pain that there is nothing but old blood, recycled phrases, and stale thoughts. Fresh poetry represents the best words in the best order that arrive like an honored guest, flow through the poet, and onto the page. This kind of poetry he seeks cannot be forced or coerced into existence.
I don’t have the answer for Hafiz, since I, too, struggle with this question. But it feels affirming to sit in this space and ponder, with my fellow wordsmith, the slipperiness of inspiration and the heaviness of sorrow. We poets love juxtaposition and imagery. I wonder if Hafiz was inspired to write this little gem while in the depths of sorrow. If so, he has answered his own question by writing, despite the pain. I suppose the only way to know for sure is to experience it for myself.
My Poem 26:
How heavy is a heart?
Google says less than a pound, but it depends on gender, age cardiovascular health, and body size.
I say it depends on how much what is lost meant to the heart that must continue to beat.
Hafiz. Hafiz’s Little Book of Life. Translated by Erfan Mojib and Gary Gach, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2023.
I am reading Hafiz’s Little Book of Life, poetry by Hafiz-e Shirazi. He is challenging me to become more comfortable with ambiguity. I will share his poem and some of my thoughts on his poem (sometimes with the help of experts when the concepts are too hard for me), followed by a poem and some art inspired by his poem.
Hafiz’s Poem 2:
Everyone Drives by While I Walk on alone
Some thoughts:
I can only relate metaphorically to this poem because walking is difficult for me. With my joint degeneration and chronic pain, driving is much more my speed. However, I respect the deeper meanings that might be of the walking-to-the-beat-of-your-own-drum sort of metaphor. If “I” am doing something that seems to be different from “Everyone,” but I believe it to be what is best for me, I must persist, despite the aloneness. Perhaps because of the aloneness.
Sometimes solitude is the best way to connect to purpose, find center, ground. The harried rush of this world can sap our energy and distract us from the quiet inner contemplation that can connect us to our better selves. We cannot be of service to others if we are barreling through life so fast we have lost our own ability to reflect, to ponder, to get to know the quiet of our own minds. It is only here that most of us can hear the still, small voice.
I’m not sure what kind of drivers were racing past Hafiz on his alone walk in the 1300s, but I assume they were carts pulled by horses and people on horseback mostly. Faster than the pace of a walker, but nothing compared to the 80mph drivers on Texas highways. My, the poems he would have written about the rush of life we live today.
My Poem 2:
My H.E.B. has electric shopping carts for people like me to use in their store. They are slow, so as not to endanger other shoppers who could be run over.
They beep loudly and embarrassingly if I need to back up for overshooting. They are awkward for direction changes, and can be the cause of traffic jams.
But I no longer feel anything other than thankfulness when I drive them to shop. The lack of pain while choosing for myself provides autonomy and independence.
I may drag the cord behind me like a tail, stall and get stranded by a depleted battery, and back into the occasional display or wall, but I move at a pace that is mine alone.
Hafiz. Hafiz’s Little Book of Life. Translated by Erfan Mojib and Gary Gach, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2023.
I am reading Hafiz’s Little Book of Life, poetry by Hafiz-e Shirazi. He is challenging me to become more comfortable with ambiguity. I will share his poem and some of my thoughts on his poem (sometimes with the help of experts when the concepts are too hard for me), followed by a poem and some art inspired by his poem.
Hafiz’s Poem 1:
Between these two doors This caravan
Some thoughts:
The imagery of doors implies entrances and exits, passageways, or boundaries. Two doors suggest pillars of demarcation in time, place, awareness or perhaps binary contrasts. Opposite ends of conceptual delineations like birth and death or past and future seem like reasonable possibilities.
But those don’t seem to be what Hafiz is concerned with. He is pointing out the between. What is happening in the interim, the dash? Of course, the interesting part is the journey. We get so hyper-focused on reaching the destination that we become uncomfortable with the time spent in the now learning to be patient.
I picture a caravan of camels carrying the worldly goods of travelers long distances, the people eager for trade, companionship, good food, fresh water, music, romance, and laughter. It is life in motion. The doors are really of no consequence right now. They are the least of our concern when we have all this living to do.
My Poem 1:
Unmoored, afloat, uncertain if hope is a delusion or a virtue stillness sits where ambition once cracked her knuckles
the in-between is where? beginning was once easy to define though ending is unknown the certainty of it was assumed
now nothing reveals itself as absolute except this protest march that might possibly transform into a celebratory parade
Hafiz. Hafiz’s Little Book of Life. Translated by Erfan Mojib and Gary Gach, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2023.
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