I acquired my first computer over forty years ago, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. It had no hard drive, no monitor, no mouse, and the keyboard was a squishy set of keys in the actual computer casing.

It had just 16k of memory and could only display 8 colours. In order to do anything with it you had to write your own code with perfect syntax, this was lost when you switched it off. Thankfully, a clever adaptation was to connect your tape cassette through which you could then record your code and eventually load other peoples.

As a young artist, I wanted to be in at the start of a new way of creating images. There was no off the shelf art software for at least 6 months, so I found code that allowed me to make basic images. The first thing I created was an outline of the British Isles. It took me days to get the code to work and further days to program in the coordinates from graph paper where I had drawn the outline of the British Isles. I know this seems like madness now. I had already got the artwork through traditional skills, namely pencil and paper, but I was prepared to spend days getting it to appear on screen.

Things changed quickly. Within two years, other computers appeared with built-in floppy drives and eventually hard drives. The mouse appeared as an input device, along with dedicated monitors and other peripherals. Software of all types became available, even creative packages. I was hooked! Even at Art College I maintained my exploration of the new field of computer graphics. Film and TV were making waves with this new art form and the lowly personal computers were set on a parabolic curve of innovation. After my degree, I took out a bank loan and purchased my first Apple computer. The date was 1984.

I made a career in desktop publishing that lasted some thirty-plus years. In the background I continued to develop my interest and skills in computer graphics branching out to 3D, animation, and digital photography. Occasionally, I made money from these areas, but it was mostly a personal obsession. Throughout all these years, I imagined a time where I could simply talk to the computer and it would summon up the images I described. It never occurred to me that this would happen in my lifetime using technology I could afford. It was a SCFI fantasy of a creative person that wanted the computer to do the hard slog of image making, 3D rendering and animating worlds.

One day it’s pencil and paper, the next it’s computer and AI.

Today I sit and chat with my computer and together we make things, images, animation, 3D models, music, and editorial. The list keeps expanding. The last eighteen months have brought the future to my devices and filled me with equal measures of wonder and dread. I have sat on the fence over AI for the past six years, musing the positives and the negatives. Given my history with technology, I think the outcome was predictable, if not inevitable. I am now using AI to do creative things. Mostly, as with the computer graphics of the past, it is for my own benefit. (That said, my largest commission last year involved the use of generative images.) Where all this will lead is hard to say, but like previous creative innovations of the recent decades, I plan to be there, dipping my toe into the ocean of potential possibilities.

I won’t abandon my traditional art, as that fulfils a different need in me, and I think this is the point. It doesn’t have to be either or, when it comes to creativity. One day it’s pencil and paper, the next it’s computer and AI. For me as a creative person, I want to try everything and anything, learn new things and still have fun in the process.

Sean Briggs has spent 30+ years working in the publishing world. He now makes a living as a traditional and digital artist.