This is part of a series of blog posts about art and AI. Here are the first two, which you might also want to read:

Those first two were more philosophical in nature and this one will be far more practical! I want to show you all the great ways that AI can help you in the art classroom! Then I’ll end with some tips for making AI easier to use.

Students drawing a fantastical creature using an AI image as reference — AI generated this image to represent what it might look like to use an AI-generated image in a drawing class!

Stay Between the Guardrails

Of course, the guardrails still apply, so don’t let AI take away all the work that forms you! In fact, my most frequently used rule of thumb for this is, “What is AI freeing me up to do?”

This is such a helpful guiding principle for me because it encourages me to do the formative work I really want to do. For example, I want to spend time with people, face to face, teaching them art instead of investing countless hours at home by myself creating line drawings for my students to use as reference images. AI creates those images for me. I check them over and then use them in class. This allows me to spend fewer hours on prep work and teach more classes! Yay!

Don’t forget the other 2 guardrails because they’re important too: be honest and take responsibility for the output! (I do hope you’ll go back and read the post about AI Guardrails!)

18 Practical Ways to Use AI in the Art Classroom

Now, without further ado, here are my top 18 ways to use AI in your art class, grouped into 5 different categories.

Reference Images: This is my favorite way to use AI for art class!

Generate reference images for common items. For example, you want to honor copyright but it’s hard to find a public domain image of a grey sphere on a white table with the lighting off to the side. No problem: ask AI!
Generate reference images for fictional creatures, fantasy settings, or scenes that would be impossible to photograph.
Generate an image, then have students reinterpret it in a different medium.
Create templates for common classroom projects.
Let several students work from the same AI reference and compare how differently they interpret it.

Brainstorming: Sometimes students and teachers alike need a little help brainstorming

Generate unusual drawing prompts. (I did this and AI gave me: “a desert animal running a bakery” so then I asked it what that might look like and it generated this image below. Isn’t this fun!? Obviously, if you were generating drawing prompts for your class, you wouldn’t then ask AI to generate the image too.)
Create a class character and have students illustrate that character in different settings or situations.
Brainstorm cross-curricular projects involving art and history, literature, science, or geography.

a desert jack rabbit at her bakery in a saguaro

Critiquing: This is a key part of art because it helps us improve.

Start by providing basic critique questions and as time goes by, students will learn to ask themselves these questions and probably add some more to them!

Generate thoughtful critique questions appropriate to the students’ ages.
Start with an AI image and critique it. This builds the critique and ‘editing’ muscles on the brain without any student being put on the spot by having others critique their artwork.
Show students an AI image with mistakes in it and ask them to find the mistakes. (This is really hard and only works if the students know the subject well. You can make yourself an ‘answer key’ by asking AI to critique its own image.)

Help Fixing: Upload a photo of a work of art and then ask AI about it

When you do this, remember our privacy guardrails and don’t upload other people’s info without their permission!

If you’re struggling with an artwork, show AI your reference image and your artwork, then ask it what makes yours look different.
Ask, “What makes this image convincing, confusing, balanced, or generic?”
Ask, “How could I improve this artwork?” and then thoughtfully decide if you agree with AI’s suggestions.

Writing: Since we’re focused on art skills and not writing skills…

Just like creating art is a transformative process, so is writing. However, people who are focused on learning to create images to communicate their ideas often do not want to spend a ton of time learning to craft words that express their ideas (and vice versa). Plus, we learn best when we break complicated tasks into small, simple tasks. So in art class, I encourage people to use AI for writing in order to allow them to focus on the creation of the image. (Obviously, using AI for writing in a writing class would defeat the point.)

So here are just a few ways AI can make writing easier for art class (where we aren’t trying to teach the skill of writing).

Use AI to suggest titles for finished artwork.
Have AI interview the artist and then draft an artist statement about each artwork (how and why they made it, what it means to them, etc.).
Have AI adapt project instructions for different skill levels.
Have AI translate text for multilingual students. (AI is still growing in this area, so be sure to have someone fluent in the language proofread it if errors will be embarrassing.)

Bonus: Other People’s Projects:

Hear me out here! You’re an artist, so people ask you to create something for them all the time, right? “Could you design this poster, create a logo for the club, and sketch a mockup of this room layout?”

Tell them you’re short on time but you’re happy to use your AI experience and expertise to create something with AI for them.
- Then be sure you don’t spend a bunch of time on it! You have to remember that they probably aren’t looking for an artistic masterpiece when they ask you to do something for free. They just need a quick image and AI can give them just that.
- You might also consider a little “created with AI” label on it if you’re worried that someone will attribute the AI image (which looks nothing like your normal style) to you.

So those are the ways I like to use AI in my art classes. Now on to some tips for making it easier on you.

Tips for Making AI Easier to Use

Personalize your AI

I mentioned in the last post that I’ve personalized my AI so it works more like I want it to. You can and should do this whether you’re using it for art or not! This will cut way down on most of the typical AI problems (overconfidence, hallucinations, and sycophancy).

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and even Grok (although it works a bit differently) allow you to give some “personalization” instructions within the settings, so they apply to every conversation you have. Just ask your AI how to set up personalization and it will walk you through it. I suggest you copy and paste the text below (or whatever parts of it you like) into your AI and then add any more rules as you discover you need them:

Never use an em dash.
Avoid emojis.
Don’t add images unless asked to do so.
Keep your responses short and concise, without a lot of fluff. Encouragement is helpful but don’t say the same thing multiple ways.
If something is unclear, ask me clarifying questions instead of inferring or assuming.
If you don’t know, tell me you are guessing or implying. Rate your own confidence and claim it as “certain” if you have hard evidence, “likely” if it’s a strong inference, “guessing” if you’re filling gaps.
Don’t automatically agree with me. I need you to push back when appropriate. I need you to be an advisor who is smarter than me and challenges my assumptions when appropriate.
Give me the uncomfortable news first (but don’t always call it out with those exact words). If there’s a truth I probably don’t want to hear, lead with it first, not buried farther down.
If I push back, don’t automatically fold unless I give you new key information.
Don’t ask me too many questions at once. Limit it to 2 or 3.

Ask AI

Whenever you’re stumped on what to do or how to do it, just ask your AI. Prompt engineering is a thing of the past. Now, just explain what’s going on and ask it how it can help. Usually, AI will know better how to do something than any YouTube video or blog post because AI is advancing faster than any content creators can publish content.

Ask AI to Check Itself

AI is remarkably good at stepping back and taking a fresh look at the thing it just created and finding mistakes in it or ways to improve it. You can even ask it to go through several cycles of critiquing and improving. Just give it some criteria of what you’re looking for and how many times it should cycle.

I know some people like to create content created by one brand of AI and have a different brand of AI critique it, which works great if you have multiple AIs.

Consider Upgrading to a Paid Version of AI

The free versions are a good starting point, but if you find yourself wanting to do real work with AI, you’ll probably need to pay a bit. Ask yourself what busy work you’d hire out if you could and how much you’d be willing to pay. I bet it’s way more than the lowest tier of an AI Agent… And right now is the cheapest it will ever be… Plus, the privacy and copyright rules are different if you’re using a paid version. Just consider it!

Are you excited to start using AI yet?

I hope so! It’s a very powerful tool, so use it wisely and teach your students to use it wisely.

AI has no soul and it’s not created in the image of God, so use it with the knowledge that you still have something special to add to this world. You reflect God and his glory in a unique way. If you’ll learn to use it, AI is your tool, not your replacement.

How about you? How are you using AI these days?

This Is Part of a Series About AI

Here are the other parts:

I also recently appeared on the AI and Your Homeschool podcast with Nancy Manos to talk about using AI thoughtfully in art education. We explore practical ways AI can support learning, how to recognize when it begins replacing the work students need to do, and why hands-on art-making and human creativity still matter. Listen to the podcast episode (and find all the show notes and links) on Nancy’s website or watch it on YouTube.

How to Use AI in the Art Classroom: 18 Practical Ideas