Instructions: Using Procreate or another digital art app, create an illustration of a futuristic city.

1. Develop a hand-drawn draft of a futuristic city: Using traditional drawing mediums (pencil, pen, charcoal, etc.) draft an illustration of a futuristic city that addresses a theme you predict will be relevant in a 100 years (e.g., sustainability, surveillance, climate adaptation, transportation, etc.)  Take a picture of your draft drawing to submit.

2. Develop your digital illustration: In Procreate or another digital art app, complete your illustration.

3. Share and reflect: Share both the illustration and the draft of it in the discussion prompt and explain why you made the aesthetic choices you did. Why did you choose a certain color palette or value scale? How did you use rhythm and gesture? How did you choose the main focal point? What themes emerge from your image? How did your image change from draft to final product? How did your chosen theme influence the way you designed the city, its buildings, technology, people, or environment?

AI image generators can easily create digital illustrations of almost anything. By having students first explore their ideas through traditional drawing mediums, they must conceive of their composition before refining it in a digital art app. The prompt also asks them to explain the aesthetic choices they made, thus encouraging them to think critically about their composition and its creation. Both requirements make using AI to complete the assignment difficult, if not impossible.