A collection of some of Pamme’s sketchbooks

We ‘creative types’ have been struggling for some time now to assess the impact of Artificial Intelligence on our creativity – and our livelihoods. These new AI programs not only gobble up our words, digest and regurgitate them (usually without attribution or payment) but they also raise deep philosophical questions about the nature of creativity and of innovative thought.

Can the AI ‘whole’ be greater than the sum of its constituent parts? In other words, can these programs create new ideas, new points of vie w, or will they just be an amalgam of their input, talented and directed maybe, but adding no new insights? Can the new Dickens or Dostoevsky be created in a box?

Up to now these questions have largely concerned writers (and troubled legislators who fear a super-intelligent artificial mind may conclude that humans are dispensable.) But now the Visual Arts are involved as well.

Watermill painting tutor, Pamme Turner has been thinking about this issue in one of her latest blogs, entitled ChatGPT vs the Artist’s Mind. She writes: “There are always rumblings in the art world over “what is real art” — the illustrious Impressionists suffered derision and many raised eyebrows among the Paris critics in their first 1874 painting exhibition.

“Now, another ‘up and coming new/young artist’ with groundbreaking artworks has arrived on the scene – ChatGPT.

“I’m sure you all have heard or read something about this new entity—ChatGPT is an AI language and writing tool—sometimes described as your ‘genius friend’—which can write poems, create and edit term papers, create company documents, write magazine/news articles—and yes, draw and paint pictures, creating convincing visual art.

“ In early 2022, it might have only been a toddler, but now it’s in art school!

“So, my question here is ‘Can ChatGPT ever truly mimic the ‘artist’s mind’ and ‘creativity?’ ”

Pamme’s answer: “We, my dear friends, will have to wait and see.”

It’s difficult to see how a ‘bot in a box’ could get out and about to perform one of the essential processes for generating artistic creativity – keeping sketchbooks and notebooks recording the world about us. Pamme’s blog has a link to an insightful video from the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, on artistic geniuses doing just that.

Leaves from a Eugene Delacroix sketchbook: the entry into Mekmes. 1832. Louvre

Why not use your own intelligence and join Pamme on her course at the Watermill this September, for convivial creativity in the heart of unspoilt rural Tuscany, Italy?

We’d love to welcome you here.

Pamme Turner

Watercolours and gouache

22-30 September  2025

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