The Strange Way AI Led Me Back to Drawing

I’ve actually had quite a complicated relationship with using AI.

The funny thing is, art has always been woven through my life. Through my work, how I see the world, even how I choose to show up in it. I used to LOVE drawing when I was younger and was actually pretty good at it.

Then life started life-ing. 🤷🏿♀️😂

Creativity didn't necessarily feel like the sensible route to build a life around, so I was pushed more towards practical courses and roles. Then came family, responsibilities, money and all the other things that slowly become more urgent than sitting somewhere drawing for hours.

But the art never really went anywhere.

Years later, when I started building my own creative projects, I had all these worlds and images running around inside my head and desperately wanted to SEE them.

I initially wanted to work with illustrators. I contacted artists whose work genuinely matched what I envisioned. DMs, emails. Some never responded. I tried Fiverr, but the work still wasn't quite translating what I could see in my head.

Then there was the reality of money.

I was trying to build a creative business from my own pocket while raising a large family, and I needed a ridiculous amount of imagery. No artist should work for free, nor did I expect them to, but commissioning everything I needed simply wasn't financially possible.

I applied for grants. Rejected. I even paid to enter a grant application once. 😭😂 Poured my heart into explaining what I was trying to build, only to essentially be told, we love the vision, but we need more.

And one of the things I needed to show people what I was trying to create was… visuals. 🥴

So eventually I turned to what was available to me.

AI.

At first, it became almost like a visual sketchbook. A way of dragging some of the chaos out of my imagination and finally seeing it in front of me.

Black women. Cosmic imagery. Ridiculous colour. Retro comic textures. Psychedelia. Strange eyes. Symbolism. Hair behaving like it has its own spiritual Wi-Fi connection. 😭🤣

But here is the part that shocked me most.

Using AI has somehow led me straight back to drawing.

Twenty-four years later, I'm relearning something I once loved. Construction. Anatomy. Line. Colour. All while my hands are looking at my imagination like, girl, slow down. 😂

And maybe that is why my relationship with AI feels more complicated than simply being "for" or "against" it.

It helped me make visible something I couldn't afford to produce another way at the time.

But somewhere along the way, it also reminded me that I used to make things with my own hands.

And now I want them back.

I want to find out what happens when everything I've absorbed through design, Black culture, spirituality, history, colour, fashion, surrealism and twenty-four years of living meets the girl who used to sit down and draw.

I want to see what happens when my hands finally catch up with my imagination. 

P.S - To hold myself accountable I have included a cringe-worthy section on my website that I'll start to update weekly 👀