AI Art for People Who Can't Draw, Gardening in a Time of Drought

I have been through some changes in my past times. Now I am expanding from writing to new activities. I am looking for short-duration, low-energy output, and low-stress hobbies. Early in my Crohn's disease journey, I  nixed cage fighting and a hot pepper eating from my hobby options. Also, I decided to let my scuba gear go. I did not want my illness to hold my gear back from living its best life. In addition, letting my old hobbies go made room for my imagination to develop new activities to engage my senses. It makes no sense to miss the things you can't do at the expense of discovering what new challenges you can accomplish.

This last month my friend ran across an AI art application that has two practical ways to make original art with AI speed. The first tool will take your written description and turn it into original art. A second tool will take one of your pictures, pair it with a painting style, and generate a digital work of art. Digital art is not a format I have considered previously. In the last few years, I have been drawing with pens and crayons and discovered I couldn't draw anything as I imagined. So this AI art app is a welcome addition to my creative endeavors.

I was recently taking care of my sister's garden, which was fun. There is more excitement in watching the flowers come to bloom from nothing than I expected. My twin sister and my older brother both love to garden. They like dahlias. Home gardening is an activity that I can handle; low energy, short duration, and low stress. This week my husband and I bought a big bag of potting soil. We are in a long-term drought in Los Angeles. I am learning to make do with little water using pots around our building. I am filling them with my collected hollyhock seeds and cactus cuttings. It's a win-win for the building we live in and for me to have yet another creative outlet.  

What am I reading this week?

The Complete Short Stories of J.G. Ballard

I am impressed that this collection is so huge. There are so many unique storylines. He is not telling the same story again and again. Spoiler alert someone tends to come to a bad end in all the stories. I just finished one about a teacher getting herded into a time portal into the distant past. The theft of a fossil shell off the beach was his downfall.