Is AI a Friend, Foe, or Creative Studio Assistant? (with Guest Lisa Martin)

Artificial Intelligence — it’s one of the most talked-about (and divisive) topics in the creative world right now. Some say it’s stealing from artists… others call it a total game-changer. But what’s the truth when you’re actually using it inside a creative business?

In this episode, Kaylie and Delores sit down with artist and designer Lisa Martin of Beachside Designs to unpack the real conversation around AI — beyond the hype, fear, and frustration.

Lisa shares how she went from being “AI-resistant” to using tools like ChatGPT to streamline her business — from product listings and blogging to building her website. Together, the trio explores:

✨ How AI can save time and reduce overwhelm for artists and small business owners
 🎨 Where to draw the ethical line between assistance and authorship
 ⚖️ The fears many artists have about AI scraping artwork and flooding marketplaces
 💡 How Kaylie and Delores use AI to create branded graphics and content in their own businesses
 🖌️ Why the heart of creativity will always belong to humans

It’s a balanced, honest conversation about finding the middle ground — using AI as a tool, not a threat — and how it can become your “secret studio assistant” without replacing your creative voice.

🎧 Tune in and join the conversation: is AI your friend, foe, or creative studio assistant?

Connect with us:
Kaylie – @SpellweaverCreativeStudio

 Delores – @DeloresArtCanada

 Guest:

Lisa Martin – Website: Beachside Designs

Instagram: beachsidedesigns.com_oc

Transcript

​[00:00:00] 

Kaylie Edwards: welcome back to another episode of the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I'm Kaylie and I'm here with my co-host Delores, today we've got a guest joining us for what I think is going to be a really interesting conversation. We are diving into something that's got the creative world completely split right now.

Artificial intelligence, is it a friend, a foe, or maybe even your secret studio assistant? We've seen heated debates, big fears, and also some really exciting possibilities. To help us unpack this, we're joined by one of our community members, Lisa Martin from Beachside Designs. Lisa's a designer and creator who's been experimenting with AI to help her business, and I can't wait to hear how she's using it behind the scenes.

Lisa Martin: Hi, I'm Lisa and I name my business Beach Side Designs, I mostly paint florals because I live at the beach and I love seashells. I do mixed [00:01:00] media watercolors, florals and coastal inspired art. I have been learning for several years how to, put them on greeting cards and art prints from Delores.

I actually started out, with I guess the big brother of a greeting card, affirmation deck as a, the first freebie on my website. My work's pretty relaxed. It's, it's sort of like the beach meets the arts studio, like a lot of artists. I started out very anti ai. I heard about it, I was scared of it.

I like traditional things. I like the mess on the table. But over the years I have started to use these digital tools. I've gotten in love with procreate and Delores has been teaching me Affinity Designer and bless her heart, Natasha Gulliford has tried to pound Photoshop into my head really, if I'm honest with myself, all of these are AI tools.

When chat, GPT [00:02:00] and Grok AI and all those came around, I was curious, but still very cautious. You think about that Will Smith movie iRobot? You know, you're scared they're gonna take over the world, but I didn't wanna be in the dark either. I didn't wanna be like. Grandma tied to the rotary phone on the wall with the cord when everybody else had a cell phone.

So I think you should know your enemy. I've explored it more each year, gotten a little more comfortable with the fact that it really is here to stay. Now it's become a very competent, cheap administrative assistant for me, and I needed help. I am an artist.

I don't like all that other stuff that comes with, organizing and tagging and selling your products. So the heart of everything I do is, you know, it's me. The mediums I choose to use, the experiments I choose to make. Pictures I take endlessly to give me [00:03:00] inspiration, but AI has freed up some stress and a lot of time when it comes to administrative tasks and organizing.

I feel like I've allowed it to, enhance my workflow. 

Delores Naskrent: I like that, and I can a hundred percent relate to that. Lisa, it's great to have you here, by the way. You've been doing so much inspiring work in the community lately with your cards in the Facebook group. I'm curious about specifics, like what exactly have you been using ai.

And what has it changed for you? Because I know I'd like to compare notes 'cause I know what things I'm using it for. I'd love to hear what you're using it for. 

Lisa Martin: I've been using it for a lot of different things, I think we were gonna talk about Zazzle a little bit. 

lately, it has really saved me I should have listened to you in the beginning. You told me I should put my art on Zazzle and Card Isle at the same time, and, and I just chose to, I started [00:04:00] Zazzle and I started Card Isle and went wishy-washy back and forth, and I ended up just focusing on Card Isle.

So now when I'm like, come to my senses, I'm like, I can't link these cards from my website to Card Isle. There's no way to do it now. And, I said, well, Zazzle it is. And so, you know, now that I made the decision, I have 200 cards, how are you gonna, even, and my husband kept poking me.

He's like, you have to do it. So, chat, GPT saved me, buddy. 200 cards, 200 descriptions, 200 titles and tags that were SEO in a week. 

Kaylie Edwards: Wow. 

Lisa Martin: While I was living life. 

Delores Naskrent: Yes. Very, very, very important to keep that in the equation somehow. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, it's incredible. It just goes to show how AI can help when you're strapped for time and to do something that would've took you [00:05:00] so what much longer.

If you hadn't have used the AI to help you like list it listing, like that's, that was one of my big things with Etsy. When I started with Etsy. It took me so long to do listings and it really disheartened me because I was just like, all these descriptions and everything that you need to do and then you have to do the research and, yeah.

Now that AI's come along, it's not such a daunting task to do. 

Lisa Martin: you all know about my failure to launch. I've made three websites and some of them never made it up. One was just the Adobe portfolio. When I bought my website from no Hassle websites, that was the eye-opener with AI for me because she sold for $36.

There was an add-on and you could get her videos and she would hold your hand and give you the prompts. This is when it started making sense to me. [00:06:00] AI is only as good as what you tell it about yourself. She said, have AI a little bit about your business. Have it ask you 7, 8, 9, 10 questions about your business.

And then you take the time to fill all of that information in. You feed it back to AI in this particular way, and all of a sudden I had my about page, I had my homepage, I had my artist bio, and it pretty much sounded like me. And I was like, wow. In three days I had a basic website, just like she said I would.

And that was an eye-opener. 

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. Sometimes. I mean, when you talk about it, the way you're describing it is like you are getting your momentum from the AI helping you get over the, overwhelming beginning part where you just can't, figure out what the next step is.

I like that. I think sometimes that's the biggest win is just getting the momentum [00:07:00] back. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, that definitely true. Took me so long to do as well with my business without the ai, it felt like an uphill battle trying to do everything. You have to do all the content the graphics for your business, and you have to do all the selling, and then you've got the emails and oh, it's just becomes a complete mountain and by the time you actually start selling anything, you're back to square one and you have to do it all over again.

Delores Naskrent: It's exhausting especially when you're, right at the beginning stages when you are just. One person trying to do everything even, having Kaylie you on as my marketing person even just between the two of us, it's still such a mountain of stuff that we have to do. I find myself relying more and more on it.

Not for any of the, illustrating in classes and my, work that I sell or license, but I am using it for all [00:08:00] of those little sneaky things that are in the background that are always needing to be done. You know, and it's not like you get them done and they're done. You get them done and then the next thing kind of pops into place that you have to do, 

If you can just shave a little bit of time here and there off some of these tasks that you have to do, it can make the world of difference. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, it can. I love that. It's such a great example of someone who's found balance, Lisa, between traditional creativity and tech.

What was the light bulb moment where you realized, okay, this actually helps me rather than it's taking over. 

Lisa Martin: Well, after the website, I had my eyes open, but I was still using the free version. Yeah. And, you know, you run outta time pretty fast. I went ahead and joined the Momentum Makers because I liked Nettas teaching style.

She gives you a big kick in the butt. I was trying to keep up and, and I couldn't, 'cause I kept running outta data. And so [00:09:00] 4th of July, I got very frustrated and said, well, I'm just gonna spend the $20 and get this done. Because I was using the bootcamp she had.

To organize my procreate brush sets and collage papers. 'cause eventually I want to sell them as sets. After five years of making art, I was overwhelmed with what I had and thought I might not ever open the collage membership, but I could certainly use that structure to my benefit. I kept running outta data and so I paid, and I had it done so fast, like 12.

Collage kits with brushes coordinated with the layout and everything. And I'm like, well, okay, that was wonderful. I'm gonna use every bit of data that it gave me. So it was my goal to use up all that $20 worth of data. And I did, I went through [00:10:00] all of my, notes for years of blog posts. I talked about blog strategy and started chatting, they call it chat.

I started going back and forth with it, and at some point it seemed to give itself permission to ask me the questions I needed to, be asked. I got this blogging strategy, like what artists ought to blog about what SEO is good for. I started talking to it about Pinterest and it said it could give me SEO pins it was just amazing.

And then it told me what kind of pictures I should go take to go with the blog. And I went and I took them. It was like I had an assistant. If I prompted it properly, it gave me, really good feedback. I could say, is this good or is this not good? And it will honestly tell you, you know, it, it doesn't have to just be all, oh, you're wonderful.

It can say, well, you need to change this. [00:11:00] So I took this article I had written for Uppercase Magazine about intuitive art it was way too long. I went over the character limit and I had to keep, whacking it. I never made it into Uppercase Magazine, but I had this really long blog article about intuitive art.

I dropped it into chat. One of one Neta's things was, well, this is how you SEO your blog, which, you know, that's all new to me. You are supposed to have these subtitles. And I'm like, this could be a nice blog. So I gave it to chat and said, can you fit it to the format?

And it said yes, and I hated it. It was horrible. It did not sound like me at all. But like the third time around when I said, don't fix my grammar, leave my made up words, stop helping me leave my raw words and make this fit, the subtitles and it's done. I actually have a blog. I've been wanting to blog forever and ever, and it would've been never and never if I hadn't had that.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, it's so helpful when it comes to [00:12:00] blog posts, when you finally get it to the way you speak and the way your words are. 'cause AI does it with me as well, where it changes my words. I'm like, I would never say that in a million years. That isn't a word I would ever use. Yeah. And you have to keep giving it the right thing.

Like now with our podcasts. It gets the transcripts so it knows how me and Delores talk now, so it can give us proper content back and I don't have to edit as much with it. 

Delores Naskrent: Yeah, 

Kaylie Edwards: which is 

Delores Naskrent: good. And what I love too, Lisa, is hearing, you know, that you are, you had your own collage papers, you had created your own brush sets.

What you needed was just help with getting it. Put together so that you could take that next step of having it available for sale, which was one of your original dreams from the very beginning. I remember you talking about it when you made your [00:13:00] very first brush set that you were intending to create these so that you would be able to create a different income stream for yourself or additional income stream.

What changed it for you? This has been, your game changer. It's really taken you, beyond that point, given you a little bit more momentum, I just love that whole idea. Everything is you, it's still you. It's even, to the point where you are still the one going out and taking the photographs.

It's not controlling you, it's just helping you, which I love.

Kaylie Edwards: That is another thing that that AI has obviously helped and and it's proven in your case, is that sometimes. There's just so many barriers in life, especially if you've got commitments at home. If you are looking after your husband, carer, you've got children or even just normal motherhood, family life that you know, barriers are in the way and our time is so limited, [00:14:00] and ChatGPT or whatever AI you use can relieve some of that barrier that you have.

And get you moving and just cut down so much admin time to give you that focus into creativity, which I think is such a big help. Especially when you're starting out. 

Delores Naskrent: Use it as an assistant. 

Kaylie Edwards: Okay. So before we go too far into the positives, I think it's important we acknowledge the other side because let's be honest, AI has caused a lot of fear and frustration in the creative industry, and for very good reason.

I've seen. So many artists worried about their work being copied or used without permission to train the AI models. Others feel that AI art is flooding marketplaces like Etsy, redbubble, Amazon, and they can't compete with the sheer volume of cheap listings. So let's talk about that. Number one concern is copyright and art theft.

Lisa, I know you followed some of these [00:15:00] discussions in creative communities too. What's your take on that fear? The idea that AI is scraping art, learning from artists work without their consent? 

Lisa Martin: Well, I worry for artists on a lot of levels. Nobody wants to be copied. One of the first things I started working with was, Canva AI to see what it could do, I was giving it some prompts and it was obvious that it was training on the worldwide web because some of the prompts came up with, paintings that were obviously.

Something on somebody's wall in a frame that someone had painted with their signature in the bottom corner. So I know that it happened. I know it was scanning the web and just popping up whatever images, and it's very upsetting to know that it trained that way. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. 

Lisa Martin: And that it's probably still.

Training that way. We all hope that the ethics in the public statements we're getting now are true and that all of that is in the past. But, you know, [00:16:00] it was done. It's in there now. You can't undo that. No. It's definitely can't be undone. The other thing I worry about is the people who are still very anti ai.

For an altruistic reason, they want to support handmade creativity. And like we all do. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. But 

Lisa Martin: What I worry is that now we're starting to judge and police each other's process. And that worries me almost as much as ripping off the art itself. You know, I, I wanna promote authentic individual art, but is the way to do that to say, if you even used AI to help your mood board, you are not eligible to submit to this process.

I have read that online and I've read it in more than one place so, digital artist, I play for both teams. I love digital art. [00:17:00] I don't have the best health. I like to be able to sit and play on the iPad and get the joy of the color and the creativity. But I also love, watercolor mixed media and acrylics

but digital artists are sometimes, not considered real artists. And is that because it's AI based. Well, if that's true, why can we submit digital art and things we've put into Pattern and Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator? It's a tightrope.

Delores Naskrent: I remember being, at a Maker's market where I was selling my hand painted items

there were photographers there and photographers sell prints. Is that any different than me printing off multiple copies of my artwork and selling prints? This is something that has plagued our industry for many, many years. As an artist and having been a traditional artist, as long as I've been a [00:18:00] digital artist, if not longer, I can tell you that I don't think I'm any less an artist because I'm using a stylus and an iPad to create my art.

Using procreate, using a brush that somebody created that looks like watercolor, that doesn't make me feel like any less of an artist than when I was. Doing work in my art journal, hand painting or hand drawing. It's to me just another tool. And for the same reason, Lisa, as you know, you get to a point in your life, I'm 65 years old,

find some things harder to do than I used to. And I love being able to, sit on the comfort of my couch rather than here in my office chair in front of my computer screen for, X number of hours every day. The iPad, to me does not feel like. It's been AI generated art. I'm [00:19:00] still the person doing it, and I remember objecting to the term CGI when it came out, computer generated images because

it made it sound like the computers were generating the images, if you've ever looked at really good CGI, you know that that cannot come about without an incredibly talented artist using the computer as a tool to get the art out, but it was definitely not the computer generating the art.

So that's the way I look at it. I still to this day, look at it. But that being said, I do think that AI now has made it a little bit harder for small creators to stand out because the question becomes how do we keep the quality and the heart in our handmade or illustrated work aI has made it easier for people who don't.

Get the joy of the [00:20:00] actual creating. I don't want AI to create the art for me. To me, that's the fun part. That's what I wanna keep my hands in. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. 

Delores Naskrent: When I see the generated art, it just makes me feel a little bit sad, honestly, because I know that there are consumers out there who don't.

Care or just absolutely don't know, have no idea right now that this is happening and that it's a big concern for artists. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. Those fears are completely valid as well. Another concern is over saturation and devaluation like you've just said. I keep hearing it and I've seen it myself, is how much AI generated content is flooding the market right now.

And platforms like Etsy, Amazon Redbubble are filled with AI prints, often low quality ones. It's burying genuine artists who spend hours of on their pieces and it's difficult 'cause you, you're kind of on the fine line as [00:21:00] well, is I want to create income. I want to have more money, but then where do you draw the line with how much you are gonna use AI to supplement or create that income?

And there's so much on YouTube now of showing people how to use AI to create quick incomes, and then it's all this get rich quick schemes and things and it's, it. It's sad to see it I keep getting it up in my feed and it's so annoying because it makes you angry. I'm really trying to build a business without going down this route too much.

You're popping it in my face constantly. You can do these stickers on Redbubble with all generated AI art, or you can create all these clip arts and sell it for like this amount and you'll do well. Yeah. All right. But I wanna still use my own creativity to, to create these, it's just gonna take me more time.

And then you feel like you're gonna get buried and people aren't gonna see Your [00:22:00] real creations. 

Lisa Martin: The new rule on Etsy, is not that there can't be AI art. The rule is that they have to have used their own prompts to create the AI art. Yeah. Crazy. And I understand people who like, there's always been people that bought sets of clip art.

Then they made products on Etsy with it, or on Canva with it or whatever, you know? I mean, there's always been clip art, but at least the artist was making it and selling it and getting a little income from it. Now I bought a few of those classes so I could learn what the heck is going on.

Yeah. And what the competition really is. I've spent a number of years and. Enjoyable hours, but so many hours learning to do loose watercolor florals with bleeds that don't bleed too much with softness, but detail like I [00:23:00] could prompt that AI to give you the most beautiful. I think any real artists could prompt an AI fabulously and get this wonderful output.

You know, that's a pretty hard pill to swallow. That anybody that can come up with a good prompt can now compete with what we've taken, you know, joy and years developing the skill to do. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. That's one thing because I like, I love doing water colors myself. The moment I don't have the time to do my watercolor as much as I want, and my art practice has slipped because I just, don't have the time around everything else I have to do, so I don't feel comfortable doing that the way I would.

So instead I sketch in my sketchbook and then I scan it into the computer and then I, and then I try and do as much what I can and then I give it to AI [00:24:00] to help me finish it off. Yes. All right. That might not be authentic for some people, but that is how I can get my artwork out by giving it my art to then finish off with texture and stuff.

'cause I haven't learned how to do that. Efficiently for it to be good enough yet? That's just because I haven't got the time to do the art practice. I need to do, I really enjoy using Affinity Designer, but I need to learn more before I carry on doing that. And it's what's put me off very much in doing my shop again, because I know I haven't got the time to do Full Artworks as is original right now.

Delores Naskrent: That's an important point, Kaylie, you're being transparent I think what's missing a lot from these kind of conversations in general between artists who are either very against or maybe sneak a little bit of it into their work. I think that's one of the things that's really missing [00:25:00] is the honesty about where AI is fitting in their business and where it doesn't.

I think we need to talk a little bit more about it. I use it almost strictly for my, backend kind of stuff. Running my business part of it, but it doesn't mean that I don't dabble and I have had fun creating graphics for my emails and such when I am really pressed for time. Is it authentic?

I wouldn't claim it to be my artwork by any means, but. I used to buy clip art. Is it any different? When we were first working in the advertising department of a business, we would get the big books of clip art that we would actually physically clip the art out of and paste onto our advertisements.

That is how it was done. We were not generating those. We're running businesses, so as business owners, sometimes we have to decide what part of it [00:26:00] are we gonna spend all of our time on. Am I gonna spend two and a half hours making a cute little illustration for an email, that I have to do every single week?

Lisa Martin: I wonder if you were doing them. 

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. We've only just started to do that, but there's no way I would have time to do that. I used to buy, images from deposit photos, for example. If I needed something for a blog post cover, you know, 'cause there's only so much time I have.

I am a graphic designer by trade. I can. Create, illustrate, anything. You name it. Any style, any type of medium? I hire a graphic designer to help me with my work because I just have too much work. So I have, part-time graphic designer who will do some of the things for, , my classes, like the headings and the ads and things like that.

All based on what I give her, all the direction that I give her. Okay. Is that any different i'm giving her the [00:27:00] direction, she's specifically doing it the way I want it to be done. That's kind of what I do with AI too, when I need to, generate a little image to go with, a prompt for you, wonderful artists in my community.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, and that's the thing. You also add your branding to it, like you've customized it to be able to do it in your brand style. And that's the same with myself. I, it took me a bit of time to do, but I created a custom GPT to use my colors in the right way to the elements I would normally use with my sparkles and magical stuff.

Doing it in a watery color style when I can. Using similar fonts and anything to do with coziness that's all to do with my brand. So AI now knows how to stylize my graphics for my marketing, and if I need an image for my email, and I'm just like, I can't find anything.

Because how many times I've gone through stock sites [00:28:00] looking for a decent image that makes sense to go with my blog post or something like that, or my email. And nothing fits. 'cause nothing is stylized, like a load of it is professional looking and fancy or it's really minimalist and I'm just like, none of that.

None of that makes sense for my brand. That's where ChatGPT has helped me so much in being able to do it in a branded way for myself, I can easily generate in a couple of minutes a nice graphic that goes with that content, that works with my brand. Is that cheating? I don't think it is because it's got my style, my branding, so nobody else has got that and it's created it for me.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. Business owners, big business owners have whole art departments that they hire to bring the work out there, put things out that looks like their brand, and they aren't physically [00:29:00] the ones sitting there generating the art for their brand. They have a team. So I really think that for me, AI has just become a part of the team.

I named her Piper, by the way. 

Well, it was definitely a toss up. I had a few other, ideas we talked about this a little bit, in some of the Thrive meetings, but we've all got pet names now for our AI helpers. 

Lisa Martin: Mine's named Shelby because I like shells and I like bees.

Oh, that's cool. I asked it what it would like me to call it, and it said, well, some artists, you know, beachy artists would call her shell or something. And I said I like shells and I like bees, so you'll be Shelby.

Delores Naskrent: Perfect. 

Kaylie Edwards: That's brilliant. Probably the one that's used it the longest out, the three of us, and I still haven't named any of mine.

I'll, well, I just call it under my brand, so if it's anything to do with me, I name it like SCS or something like that. And then whatever it's for. And then if [00:30:00] it's Delores's stuff, I name it with Delores or the podcast, just name it the podcast. 

okay. So let's talk about how creatives can use AI responsibly. 'cause it's not all doom and gloom.

It can genuinely help, especially when you're a one person show, like me and Lisa. Lisa, you've built custom GPTs for your card business, which is so clever. What kinds of tasks has AI helped you with the most? 

Lisa Martin: I did really get into making these custom GPTs. I like research so, you give them a knowledge base.

In addition to that content repurposer that I talked about earlier, where I, drop a blog into that and it will make me ten Pinterest pins from that blog. Give me 10 titles, 10 hooks, whatever they call all that. Then, I have obviously that Zazzle tag and description, custom chat, and then I have made [00:31:00] one that will, I can give it a product idea and it will give me three to five companion product ideas.

Which I think could help in it. It's funny what you don't think of. Like I'm better at thinking of things for other people. I'm very creative for other people. But then, when it comes to you, well it, it's just you and you get this, you draw a blank. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, 

Lisa Martin: chat's not like that.

Chat thinks you're wonderful 'cause you're paying $20 a month for it. I made one called, playful Palette. I gave it knowledge files about art supplies so beginners could ask questions and I wanna put that up on my website. It's a reason for people to.

Come to my website to link through there. Although, you know, once they have a link, they have the link forever, but that's all right. And then I made one for planning greeting card collections that I probably do not need at all because my problem is I have books and books full of tiny thumbnail sketches of greeting card ideas.

I made this one [00:32:00] so that. I can do a , a monthly seasonal overlay for it, and I can tell it. I would like to make three sympathy cards for the loss of someone's father, and it will suggest psychologically appropriate color schemes and motifs, and it will give you the hex codes.

It's wonderful. It's very good. 

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. I think that's more than ethical. It's no different than if you went and looked it up in an encyclopedia. You're getting the information that you need, but you're still doing your own artwork. I think that's a really smart way to approach it.

I definitely approach it in this way as well, using it as an assistant. I personally think it's still my creative direction. It's still your creative direction, Lisa. When you're doing that, you're just giving yourself an extra pair of hands. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yes. That's the mindset shift. [00:33:00] It's not replacing creativity.

It's helping us get more of our creative work out into the world. Just using it for ideas and things that you would never have thought of. It's just brilliant. It's like marketing ideas. Sometimes I draw a blank for myself. I can do it for other people, but then suddenly I can't quite do it for myself sometimes and I'll draw a blank and it can give me such great ideas for specific things.

So I think that's what it's really great at doing.

Delores Naskrent: I use AI to create my newsletter graphics. Sometimes for, headings we like using it for podcast covers, that sort of thing. It has saved me so much time. It means that I can focus on creating content instead of just endlessly designing graphics.

I. Love it for idea generation as well. And Lisa, I think I'm going to use some of your ideas I've heard of today, 

Lisa Martin: I'll give you the links, you can use mine. [00:34:00] 

Delores Naskrent: Thank you. You're always so generous. You're always giving me stuff to use. I really appreciate it. I need a Lisa assistant, the person that just tells me, you know where you should look.

Go look at this. 'cause you're always telling me, look at what Neta has today. And I'm just like, okay,

Lisa Martin: I know you don't have time.

Delores Naskrent: I appreciate 

Kaylie Edwards: I appreciate that. When I was in the middle of a house move and on holiday and you were sending me the things I needed to look at. I was like, oh yes.

When do I have time to do that again? Eventually. But yeah, it's not about cutting corners, is it? It's about using the tools available to stay visible because it's so hard in this day and age now, and keep momentum without the burnout because it's so relevant for this era.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah.

Kaylie Edwards: Especially with everything's moving so fast in the digital space. For me, ethical use is all about the intention you put behind it. The use of AI to assist with admin ideas, visual layouts, not to replace the art itself, but be transparent where [00:35:00] it is involved and when possible. Support tools that do train ethically, like Adobe Firefly or ones that use licensed datasets.

Delores Naskrent: That's a good tip. That's a really good tip, and always review or rewrite whatever you get from chat because it's not you yet. I think it's you after you've checked it, and to make sure that it still sounds and looks like you and is giving your opinions about stuff. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah, it has taken me a long time to get it to even just enough where I'm not having to do as much editing as I used to.

I used to completely rewrite some of the stuff it would come out with, or I'd have to re-prompt it constantly, and eventually I was just so bored of it and I just did it myself. But now it knows me so I don't have to do it as much. 

Lisa Martin: I agree. And training. Making sure the core [00:36:00] memory has your authentic voice in it.

Yeah. That if anybody wants a tip, look at what it has in the core memory. 'cause sometimes things are in there that are wrong and that's why you're getting wrong output. 

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you have to tell it what not to say, what not to do.

Yeah. So Lisa, looking ahead, how do you see AI fitting into your creative business long term? 

Lisa Martin: I told my husband, I really love my administrative assistant, I think it's gonna help me stay organized I had a little booboo with my router and accidentally broke my internet

it has helped me there isn't anything I can't ask it to research and help me with. I think it's gonna be there for me and it never gets mad when I'm stupid. I can keep asking the stupid questions and sending it screenshots of what I don't understand.

I think it's gonna be around for me. To help me in that way. Art is mental health for me. It's therapy for me. It's, happy [00:37:00] colors that's my domain. But I'm gonna continue to give, chat a picture of my greeting card and say, is that hierarchy correct?

Is there enough white space? Because, you get blind to your own work. And I, I really appreciate having, someone to tell this is your role now, in this moment with this card. Make it on American Greetings and, it'll be honest. It'll tell you No. 

Kaylie Edwards: That's brilliant.

Delores Naskrent: I love it. That's really what I love about all of it.

It's about the balance. We've seen this before where something new comes out. The new tools like Photoshop when it came out, and procreate and Canva, each one has changed how artists work, and I've lived through all of that. I've been there before computers, and when the computers first came out and they started aiding us in our design work, oh my gosh.

The uproar from the people who were, doing everything traditionally, [00:38:00] each one just has changed the way we work as artists. But hey, it's never replaced us, has it? 

Kaylie Edwards: No, exactly. AI is not gonna replace our creativity as humans because it can't, it doesn't have the emotional input there.

They still need somebody behind it to give it the right prompts 'cause trash ain and trash out. It can amplify it if we stay intentional. Your imagination, your lived experiences, your hand, your stories, that's what makes art human AI can't touch that 

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Is AI your friend, your foe, or your secret studio assistant? Come join the conversation on Instagram or threads. You can find me at Spellweaver Creative Studio. You can find Delores at Delores Art Canada. Tell us how you're using or avoiding AI in your creative journey. If you would like a follow up episode with other [00:39:00] artists or creatives, please send us a message.

You can send us a text message to the podcast on your favorite platform. I know it's on Spotify. I think it might be on Apple as well, 

Delores Naskrent: Until next time, keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.