It’s time to talk about artifical intelligence. I have eagerly been experimenting with both ChatGPT for various purposes, DALL-E for online art creations and lately the Photoshop AI. I love the many, many new possibilities we have been given with these tools! I try to always abide by the motto “embrace change” and most of the time I have fun and learn new things, and will agree that change is great!
It might be just me, since I’m such a dedicated lover of Victorian/turn of the century artwork, but I think some have eaten too many AI-pills. I watch artists I have admired over a long period, suddenly flushing their websites and shops with glossy “vintage” looking stuff, and no indication that this is AI-generated, but since I have played around in the sandbox myself, I can identify the origin without much doubt.
Another example is the large platforms like Temu, Amazon, Ali Express, which will typically not push individual artist, but still offer a lot of “vintage” artwork for scrapbookers, journal-makers and other paper crafters and vintage lovers. I had to order some papers home to see them up close, but I’m 110% sure that they are not made by people/genuine artists. They are simply too “glossy”, sometimes the people are depicted with slightly off proportions, and the definite tell is when they try to place imagery on typography… well AI can not atm produce convincing typography!
What I love about true vintage artwork is not only the feel and vibe of the imagery and typography, but also the little flaws. Genuine wear of a century (or more), unevenly faded and distressed colors, combining imagery with typography to make brand new creations! So in my opinion, we still need artist like myself (and thankfully many other out there) to preserve, redesign and offer vintage creations moving forward. Yes: AI is fun, yes: I will use it to regenerate small parts of an image, to retouch bad scratches and damages, but I think I’ll stay away from generating new images, and offering them up for sale without second thought.
You are of course welcome to your opinions on the matter, and I would love to hear them! But this is my (current) two cents, and pledge that I’ll continue sharing real vintage imagery with you all 🙂 On that note, I will move on to my belated, last Vintage Calendar freebies, lovely French Calendar Ladies:
Freebie #2: Alphonse Mucha – French Calendar Ladies
The first calendar freebie today, is one page of 12 small(ish) square cards with Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) Ladies, one for each month. These can also easily be cut into circles, if you are ok with “loosing” the months.
Freebie #3: Eugène Grasset – French Calendar Ladies
The second freebie has 3 pages of medium sized Eugène Grasset (1845-1917) Calendar Ladies, I plan to use these as cards, or print them smaller and use to embellish other items. If you examine these more closely, they all have “clean” space, just waiting for a label, a cluster and/or some words… Take a look and let your imagination soar!
Some of my older calendar freebies would still be fun to use with the new collection, check those out at the bottom of this post. I plan to continue with my Sunday posts during updates during December, so make sure you subscribe (if you have not already):
You will find the 2 parts of the Victorian Calendar collection plus the add-on and the freebie here:
1. Victorian Calendar Part 1: Pages (20 pages)
2. Victorian Calendar Part 2: Cards (12 pages)
3. Victorian Calendar Freebie #2: Alphonse Mucha – French Calendar Ladies
4. Victorian Calendar Freebie #3: Eugène Grasset – French Calendar Ladies
Click on the ko-fi logo below to find out more:
Here is a link to see older posts with content that would go well with the new collection:
Follow me on Pinterest:
Wings of Whimsy 
Thank you for sharing these lovely prints with us, Gunnvor. Much appreciated.