I peaked artistically at stick figures and the kind of doodles that suggested I never looked at the paper while I drew them. I’ve always admired those who can put pen to paper and draw something that looks even vaguely like what they intended it to be, but I never pursued it myself. But with AI tools like Google Gemini boasting of their visual analysis and feedback, I decided to see if that translated to being a useful art teacher.
I’m at the most basic of beginner levels, but Gemini can parse composition, anatomy, color, lighting, perspective, and style. And it adapts to whatever you upload, as I found when testing it on far better artwork than my own mad scribbles. Here are five ways you can make Gemini the private art tutor you’ve always wanted.
1. AI art critic
Calling my first uploaded sketches rough would be far too generous. I asked Gemini to guide me in redoing them to be better, and it laid out very helpful and simple instructions. I wouldn’t say the first results were fantastic, but I did appreciate that I didn’t immediately get complimented on my one-year-old’s efforts with the new attempts.
The most helpful recurring prompt has been to set up Gemini as a character and ask, “If you were my art teacher, what three things would you tell me to improve before redrawing this?” And it gives me clean, manageable tasks. And when I come back with the updated drawing, the AI remembers what it suggested, pointing to where I had improved.
A friend who is genuinely amazing with a pen or paintbrush let me upload a more sophisticated piece of art so I could ask Gemini to “Give me a professional art critique of this painting and ideas on improving technique.” The thorough response, going through each element of the painting and suggestions for where there might be room for improvement in terms of framing, was well received.
Gemini also did well with more specific questions like “What’s working and what isn’t about the shading and lighting in this drawing?” The AI happily detailed things like inconsistent shadows or shading like the light source on both sides of a figure.
2. Technique teaching
I don’t know a lot of even the fundamentals like “How to draw a nose,” so while the feedback was valuable, what I really needed was guidance for starting from a blank sheet of paper. Gemini had me covered from making noses that aren’t just circles to drawing faces at different angles.
It offered a week-long practice plan starting with basic head construction from the Loomis method, then moved on to drawing the head in profile, three-quarter view, extreme angles, and ended with full character expressions. I may need a lot longer than a week to improve, but even helping with learning how to shade a picture led to explanations of light logic and core shadows.
3. Style play
One of the most fun parts of using Gemini as an art teacher is exploring different styles. This isn’t just about copying Van Gogh or doodling in manga form. It’s about stretching your own visual vocabulary by seeing your work through new lenses.
Basic though my drawings were, I did find entertainment and even inspiration by asking Gemini how to make any drawing fit different style schools, from Renaissance churches to pointillism, to cubism, and more. Even restricting it to what could evolve from a basic line drawing had some inspirational suggestions, along with details on how to achieve them.
4. Visual storytelling
Though still working on basic ideas of what humans look like, I’d love to get to the point of using visuals to help tell stories. Gemini had some advice there, too. Imagining a time when I’m much better at drawing, I asked the AI to help devise suggestions for making a scene dynamic and emotionally expressive.
It suggested things like low-angle shots from behind one character to put the viewer in the middle of an argument with another, overlapping shapes to suggest depth, and even using details like how a character leans or avoids eye lines to imply avoidance. The one above is how Gemini suggested I might make the character determined and tense. My attempts so far are better left unviewed.
5. Crossover appeal
Learning about art doesn’t always mean drawing things yourself. Anything can be interpreted using artistic criticism, and not always in the same medium. For instance, I gave Gemini a photo of a rainbow I took this week and asked it to give feedback on it, not as a photo, but as if it were a painting.
It suggested making the rainbow more colorful, and having a lower horizon, with dramatic lighting and better integrated objects like power lines. I asked it to make a painting following the suggestions, and you can see how it carried out its own suggestions compared to the photo above.
I won’t ever be a great artist. But I know I can at least start not being limited to stick figures. Most of us want to get better at something creative, but life doesn’t always leave room for structured classes or dedicated studio time. Gemini can fill in some of those gaps.
So yes, I may always be the person who occasionally draws a horse that looks like a haunted potato, but now I know why it looks like that. More importantly, I know what to try next time.
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erichs211@gmail.com (Eric Hal Schwartz)
