#97, Making AI valentines with kids

Happy Valentine's Day from a wolf with fingers

Alice and Hugh really ~~shook things up~~ this year by saying on like February 1 that they didn’t want to do Valentines for their classes. By last weekend all the Targets were sold out anyway so I took Eileen to the Dollar Store — which she sadly referred to as “the walking store” because I wouldn’t let her sit in the tiny flimsy shopping carts there — and somehow bought $30 worth of truly shitty art supplies to make Valentines “just in case.” I laid it all out on the kitchen table Saturday afternoon. Hugh made a black construction paper claw hand covered with black tape, Alice made a sign for Eileen’s third birthday (which was in the past, it was on February 2) and they absolutely did not make a total of 40 Valentines for the first and third grade classes.

On Monday evening I could not let it go and I’ve been messing around with Midjourney, the AI-generated art, for work so I told the kids we could make their Valentines using that. We were working with some limitations: We only have a black and white printer so anything in color was out. Also limited: My patience, time before bedtime, certain people’s typing abilities, and our imaginations.

I’m not sure what I thought the kids would do with AI or why it would, like, let their creative juices flow. Alice wanted “Valentine’s Day corgi with hearts” which we eventually refined to “black and white pen drawing of cute corgi on Valentine’s Day with heart.” We learned that Midjourney is pretty good at corgis — it sometimes leaves off a leg or an ear but it usually doesn’t. But if you say “cute corgi with big eyes on Valentine’s Day” you may get a background of hearts with alien eyes.

Hugh wanted “Valentine’s Day wolf with heart.” We tried “holding heart” but that didn’t work because it gives the wolf either bear arms or human-esque hairy hands.

Or, in this case, tiny fur fingers just creeeeeping in.

I pointed these out to Hugh thinking he would think they were funny or, like, haha the limits of technology or whatever, but he just said, “Hey, can you get rid of those wolf fingers?”

Here’s the final product.

I printed them out 4 to a piece of printer paper and this morning I made the kids cut them apart. “Do we have to write people’s names on them?” Alice asked, and I said not if you don’t want to, and then when I was in the other room I heard her to say to Hugh, “This is so hard. We should just buy these next year.”

And to all you wonderful mamas, I didn’t forget about you on this special day

Valentine’s Day is a busy time of year for mothers, but don’t forget about an important person in the household — yourself! If someone did not send you a Valentine this year you don’t need to feel left out. I’ve got you…

…you can call me anytime, this is my number…

…and we’ll open up that can of treat to eat with our red fruits. 1VJent m m!