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Did you miss our PRINT Book Club with Pablo Declan? Register here to watch the recording and buy your copy of Prompt-Brush 1.0: The First Non-AI Generative Art Model.
As a cheeky and sharp critique of AI-generated art, designer Pablo Delcan set out to create a series of hand-drawn illustrations based on text prompts from the public (“a city made of clouds,” “turning 100 years old,” and “the five-second rule,” to name just a few). That was January 2024. Now, these poignant, humorous, and universal illustrations grace the pages of Delcan’s recently released book, Prompt-Brush 1.0: The First Non-AI Generative Art Model.
This month at the PRINT Book Club, Delcan joined Debbie Millman and Steve Heller to discuss the project, the book, and what’s next.
The spark for the Prompt-Brush 1.0 project was a genuine desire to connect with other humans through drawing. He put out a call for prompts through his network and social media. Initially, prompts came from friends and colleagues, and he figured it would fizzle out in a few weeks. But he soon realized how much he enjoyed the process, and the prompts kept coming.
Delcan’s three rules for Prompt-Brush 1.0:
One chance to draw the first thing that came to mind, no revisions
Use the same brush, ink, and paper
Draw it fast (under two minutes fast)
Prompt: Can you show me my future?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the majority of the prompts were about animals (cats were by far the most common). One of Steve’s favorites, “Chicken and Egg,” graced the 2025 SVA Subway poster. Another Heller favorite, “For Fucks Sake,” of a fork-skewered cockroach is as hilarious as it is revolting.
In many ways, this project mimicked his editorial work: synthesize complex ideas into simple visuals. The brush was new. As was the analog format. Delcan found that he enjoyed focusing on just one person, one prompt, one drawing. In our professional lives as creatives, so much of what we do is about connecting with the masses, which can feel mechanical, Delcan said. “With one person, there is a shared history, shared memory.”
No prompt evokes this shared experience more than his illustration for a woman who’d lost her father to Alzheimer’s. Delcan’s drawing for the prompt, a person hugging a pointilist outline of a disappearing figure, is both poignant and astute, and one of his and Debbie’s favorites.
Did any of the prompts stump Delcan? “Forgiveness” gave him pause, but as he faced the blank page, “I closed my eyes and thought of a recent moment I had to ask for forgiveness. I stepped on my daughter’s toes,” Delcan said. “It’s special to me because of that memory.” In fact, he plumbed his memory for his most successful illustrations. (See: Suicidal snowman.)
The 234 illustrations that made it into the book all have one thing in common: soul—a human connecting with another human through a hand-drawn response to a question.
In the interview at the end of the book, in which he had a conversation with an AI named Echo, the AI articulated a most ironic point: that the repetitive nature of the project had turned him back into a machine (the very thing he was trying to avoid).
There is so much more to uncover in our conversation with Pablo Delcan, from how he incorporates AI into his process to what projects he gives to students exploring ethics in AI to how the project has changed his craft. You can register here to watch the full recording.
Pablo Delcan is a graphic designer and art director who has made a significant impact in the world of graphic arts. He is a visual contributor to The New York Times, designing numerous covers for The New York Times Magazine and illustrating hundreds of articles, including the infamous and anonymous 2018 op-ed, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” His work has appeared in Le Monde, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Forbes included him in their “30 under 30 in Art and Style,” and he was honored as a Young Gun by the Art Directors Club (20160.
Get your copy of Prompt-Brush 1.0: The First Non-AI Generative Art Model by Pablo Delcan.
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