35 Imaginative AI Art Prompts & How to Write Them Well

Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized how artists create, opening up a new world of possibilities. By understanding AI art prompts, you can explore your creativity, push the boundaries of traditional art forms, and generate stunning, imaginative artwork for whatever you want to use it for.

After experimenting with AI art generators extensively and seeing what prompts work and which don’t, I have compiled a list of the best imaginative AI art prompts that are sure to inspire you and help you harness the power of AI to create extraordinary artwork.

In this article, we will delve into the world of AI art prompts. I’ll start by giving you a list of art prompts if you want inspiration. From there, I will discuss what an art prompt is and the key components to writing the perfect AI art prompt to get you the results you’re looking for.

After that, I’ll compare some of my all-time favorite AI art generators and give you some final AI art prompt writing tips. Once you understand how to write AI art prompts effectively, generating AI art is a breeze. Let’s get started!

35 Imaginative AI Art Prompts

I’m not going to waste any time. Before I get into what an AI art prompt is, the key components of effective AI art prompts, different techniques, etc., let’s look at some examples I’ve come up with. This will already give you an idea of what an AI art prompt is and give you some inspiration right off the bat!

These are all great starting points but can be more descriptive if you use them and are unsatisfied with the results.

1. A giraffe walking in a city with cars.
2. Drone shot of Amazon forest.
3. Minimalist illustration of house and trees.
4. A rocket launching at sunset.
5. Ambulances driving in the streets of New York in the 19th century.
6. A tree house, cinematic lighting.
7. A beautiful mask from Venice carnival.
8. A racing car with neon lights.
9. A panda eating bamboo in a tropical forest.
10. A variety of desserts on a wooden table.
11. Red-painted cottage on a remote island.
12. Vintage poster of a motorcycle.
13. A panda riding a bike through a city.
14. Surrealist background, ultra-detailed, colorful.
15. A macaw in full color.
16. Boy lost in a jungle, muted colors.
17. A magical garden with bees and flowers, pastel.
18. A lighthouse on a remote island.
19. Lab with computers and servers, isometric style.
20. A golden sculpture of a rabbit, red background.
21. Fried eggs on a plate with salad.
22. A man with curly hair wearing a leather jacket, fashion editorial.
23. Portrait of a girl with no makeup and messy dark hair.
24. Pattern with pink flowers, intricate details.
25. Beautiful natural landscape of waterfalls and mountains at dawn.
26. Metallic colors holographic background.
27. Dim-lit room with people eating at a table, 18th century.
28. A magical forest city from the future.
29. Botanical bottles with plants on a table.
30. Koi fish swimming in a pond.
31. Bohemian, rustic event venue at dusk with hanging lights.
32. Scandinavian design style living room with a green sofa.
33. Closeup of cocktail on a bar.
34. A beige color palette, layered ripped paper background.
35. Moon rising over the mountains, synth wave colors.

What Are AI Art Prompts?

So, what exactly are these AI art prompts, and how do we use them?

AI art prompts are specially crafted inputs used to generate artistic creativity using artificial intelligence algorithms like AI art generators. These prompts can be in the form of phrases or even images (in this case, phrases), and they serve as a starting point for AI models to create unique and imaginative artworks.

Using AI art prompts, artists, designers, and casual users can explore new ideas, push the boundaries of their creativity, and experiment with different styles and concepts. By putting these prompts into AI algorithms, we can witness the magic of technology as it generates stunning visuals, blends various elements, and produces mesmerizing compositions.

How to Write the Perfect AI Art Prompt: Key Components

Understanding how to write the perfect AI art prompt is essential, especially if you’re using an AI art generator that costs money and uses up credits. But there’s no need to worry!

To write an effective AI art prompt, several critical components must be considered. These components include the

1. Content Description
2. Subject Specification
3. Relevant Details
4. References to Art Form, Style, and Artists

1. Content Description

The content description of an AI art prompt outlines the overall theme, concept, or idea for the artwork. It can suggest a specific emotion, story, or message the artist wants the AI to capture. You’re going to want to make sure that this is as descriptive as possible for the best results.

Start by describing the setting or environment in which you want the artwork to occur. Some examples:

1. A mysterious forest…
2. A bustling city street…
3. A serene beach…

From there, focus on the main subject of the artwork. Is it a person, an animal, an object, or a combination? Consider their physical appearance, characteristics, and any unique features that should be highlighted.

By providing a clear content description, artists give AI a foundation to generate art that aligns with your vision.

Here’s an AI art prompt example from Canva’s AI image generator (my favorite – and it’s free!): “A mysterious forest.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting spooky Harry Potter vibes.

2. Subject Specification

Subject specification in an AI art prompt defines the main focus or central element of the artwork.

Specify a particular subject, whether that’s a person, an animal, or an object. For example:

1. A mysterious forest with monkeys in the trees…
2. A bustling city street filled with cars…
3. A serene beach with people lying on beach towels…

You’ll also want to include details like the desired pose, composition, or perspective. Once again, get as descriptive as possible.

By providing specific subject details, artists guide the AI in generating art that accurately represents the desired image.

Here’s an AI art prompt example from Canva’s AI image generator: “A mysterious forest with monkeys in the trees.”

3. Relevant Details

Now, get even deeper. Include more relevant details to help set the mood, color scheme, lighting, or composition of the artwork.

For example, you can specify the time of day, lighting source, or atmosphere of the image:

1. A mysterious forest with monkeys in the trees with vibrant colors…
2. A bustling city street filled with cars at dusk…
3. A serene beach with people lying on beach towels on a bright sunny day…

Including details about the desired art form, art movements, or artist references can also guide the AI’s interpretation of the prompt.

Here’s an AI art prompt example from Canva’s AI image generator: “A mysterious forest with monkeys in the trees with vibrant colors.”

These are starting to look really cool.

4. Art Form, Style, and Artist References

The art form, style, and artist references provide a framework for the AI to generate art in a specific aesthetic.

You can specify the desired art form, such as oil painting, digital art, or pastel colors:

1. A mysterious forest with monkeys in the trees with vibrant colors in a pixel art style.
2. A bustling city street filled with cars at dusk in the style of Claude Monet.
3. A serene beach with people lying on beach towels on a bright sunny day in a watercolor style.

Additionally, artists may reference famous artists (e.g., Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, or Pablo Picasso), art styles, or art movements, guiding the AI’s artistic interpretation.

Here are some different types of AI art you can explore:

• Photography Prompts: Photography prompts can focus on capturing the natural lighting of a springtime landscape, a city skyline, or a futuristic look. Feel free to experiment with prompts that incorporate vibrant colors, high-resolution images of natural landscapes, or prompt ideas that showcase the city lights at night.
• Painting Prompts: For those who prefer the traditional art form of painting, painting prompts can be tailored to create oil paintings of cottages, desert landscapes, or soft lighting scenes. You can also explore prompts such as painting a famous artist’s work creatively.
• Digital art prompts: Digital art prompts allow artists to explore a futuristic look, pop culture references, vibrant color palettes, and high-resolution city skyline images.
• Illustration prompts: Illustration prompts can be tailored to soft lighting scenes, famous artists’ styles, pastel color palettes, or golden hour lighting sources. By incorporating these prompt ideas, you can easily capture a mood.
• Film still prompts: Capture a wide shot of a city skyline, high shutter speed action shots, volumetric lighting, futuristic settings, or fine details of a scene. This allows you to generate art that resembles cinematic masterpieces.

By incorporating art form, style, and artist references, artists can achieve the desired look, feel, and mood of the artwork. You can have a lot of fun experimenting with AI art generators and see what they come up with.

Here’s an AI art prompt example from Canva’s AI image generator: “A mysterious forest with monkeys in the trees with vibrant colors in a pixel art style.”

The top left and bottom left results are my favorite. See how much these generations evolved as I added more detail to my AI art prompts?

Diving Deeper into AI Art Prompts

Now that we understand how to write the perfect AI art prompts let’s explore some additional aspects to consider when writing prompts, like framing, lighting, and color schemes. Some other techniques include leveraging Midjourney parameters and focusing on detail and realism.

Framing and Lighting

Framing and lighting are essential elements of an AI art prompt, as they influence the composition, mood, and atmosphere of the artwork. If you’re a photographer, understanding the principles of photography as well as framing and lighting, is useful when generating AI art.

Feel free to specify the desired framing, such as:

• A wide shot of…
• A closeup of…
• …with a high shutter speed.

Lighting prompts can include details about the lighting source, time of day, or desired lighting effects, such as soft or dramatic lighting.

By paying attention to framing and lighting details, you can ensure the generated art captures the desired atmosphere and visual impact.

Color Schemes

Color schemes play a vital role in the overall look and feel of an artwork. You can experiment with vibrant color palettes to create striking results or pastel colors for a soft, dreamy look.

Additionally, dramatic lighting can add depth and emotion to an art prompt, while neon lights can create a futuristic and vibrant aesthetic.

By incorporating color schemes into an AI art prompt, artists can guide the AI in generating art that aligns with their desired aesthetic.

Read More: Best Popular Retro 70s Color Palettes

Leveraging Midjourney Parameters

Of the AI art generators out there, Midjourney will get the most complicated with its AI art prompts. However, it’s known to create stunning results that are highly detailed.

If you’re using Midjourney for your AI art generations, you can get an even deeper level of detail with what are called “Midjourney parameters.” Prompts can be enhanced by incorporating these parameters, which can modify aspects of an image, such as its aspect ratio, the version of the Midjourney model being used, the upscaler being used, and other factors.

To apply these parameters to your AI art generation when using Midjourney, type a double hyphen followed by the parameter name and value at the end of the prompt. Here are some examples:

• –aspect, or –ar Change the aspect ratio of a generation.
• –chaos <number 0–100> Change how varied the results will be. Higher values produce more unusual and unexpected generations.
• –fast override your current setting and run a single job using Fast Mode.
• –iw <0–2> Sets image prompt weight relative to text weight. The default value is 1.

Midjourney parameters allow anyone to add fine details to the art prompt and have more control over the outcome of the art prompt.

Level of Detail and Realism

Adding “4K” or “8K” to an AI art prompt can take detail and realism to the next level. By specifying the resolution, you can instruct the AI art generator to produce images with higher pixel counts, resulting in sharper and more intricate details.

For instance, if you want your AI-generated artwork to have an incredibly lifelike feel, you can use prompts like “Create a 4K painting of a serene mountain landscape” or “Generate an 8K portrait of a person with striking realism.”

The higher resolution not only enhances the clarity of the final output but also allows for more nuanced textures and finer brushstrokes.

Comparing AI Art Generators

I’ve spent some time testing AI art generators, and here are some of my favorites with some prompt tips.

Canva

After experimenting with multiple AI art generators, the Canva AI image generator is my favorite. With the free plan, you will have access to 50 Magic Media uses for a lifetime, as well as three uses for DALL·E and Imagen by Google Cloud.

The nice thing about Canva is that it integrates into your Canva projects, allowing you to incorporate AI-generated artwork into your designs seamlessly. Within your projects, you can edit and refine your AI art using Canva’s image editing tools, such as adjusting colors, adding filters, and resizing.

But that’s not all! Canva has multiple AI art generators you can use in your projects:

• Magic Media: Powered by Stable Diffusion, select image variations based on desired aesthetic and composition. Choose different styles, whether that’s film, watercolor, photo, and more.
• Dall-E by Open AI: Generate lifelike visuals based on the given description, incorporating the style and technique of your choice.
• Imagen by Google Cloud: Create unique photorealistic images by incorporating specific text prompts into your preferred artistic technique or style.

Canva Prompt Tips

My tips for using Canva’s AI art generators are pretty standard. From my experience with using Canva as an AI art generator, you can give it simple prompts, and it’ll spit out stunning results.

• Include as much detail as possible for the most accurate results.
• Adjust the aspect ratio and style for better results.

Canva Test

In my Canva test, I used Magic Media with the AI art prompt, “metallic colors holographic background.” As you can see, you can give Canva a pretty simple prompt and get excellent results. The images have a high level of detail, and the colors are stunning.

Dream Studio

As its name suggests, Dream Studio makes your dreams come to life! So, it’s not the best option if you want to generate photo-realistic images.

Compared to Canva’s AI art generator, Dream Studio has more flexibility. There are more styles to choose from, which may be more accurate to your vision. You’ll also have the option to add a negative prompt, which allows you to specify what you would like to exclude in your generation. Plus, you can choose how many images it generates at a time, and you’ll have more control over the aspect ratio.

Dream Studio Prompt Tips

Here are my tips for using Dream Studio the most effectively:

• Incorporate a mix of nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
• Provide detailed instructions.
• Specify the preferred art style, technique, or artist in your prompt.
• Explore various color palettes, lighting options, and settings to enhance the complexity of your images.
• Familiarize yourself with the AI model’s subtleties.

Dream Studio Test

When testing Dream Studio, I went with the text prompt “Ancient temple in a mountain range, surrounded by misty clouds and tall peaks, mysterious, ancient, high detail.” The images are accurate and highly detailed. However, they maintain an illustrative quality despite not having selected a style.

Fotor

Seeing as Fotor is primarily an online image editor, it’s no surprise that out of the three AI art generators I’ve mentioned, this is the best option for photo-realistic results. However, you’ll only get five credits for free that allow you to generate five photos until you have to upgrade.

Fotor Prompt Tips

Here are my Fotor AI art prompts for the best results:

• Provide clear and precise details.
• Use specific and tangible language.
• Illustrate your desired outcome rather than focusing on what is lacking.
• Adjust the importance of keywords.
• Combine two elements using “AND.”
• Select a style that complements your needs.
• Establish your own unique style.
• A bigger face yields better outcomes.
• Get additional variations through secondary creation.
• Modify the aspect ratio for satisfactory results.
• Adjust the number of generated images.

Fotor Test

I got pretty detailed with this one, using the text prompt: “A 28 mm closeup photo of a tesla cybertruck on a wet floor of a photo studio, intricate, hyper-detailed, smooth, high contrast, volumetric lighting, octane, moebius, greg rutkowski, blade runner, ripley scott, synthwave, cinematic.” There was an option to choose “Photography” as a style, and these do look like authentic photos.

Despite the car not being a cyber truck, as specified in the prompt I gave it, the results are very detailed and are great for product images.

Final AI Art Prompt Writing Tips

Here are some final tips to improve your AI art prompt writing skills:

• Understand the structure of an AI art prompt, including the content description, subject specification, and inclusion of relevant details.
• Use artist references to set a desired outcome for your art prompt, drawing inspiration from famous artists, art styles, or movements.
• Experiment with different lighting sources to create a desired mood, such as soft lighting for a gentle, dreamlike look or dramatic lighting for a more intense atmosphere.
• Incorporate additional details to add depth and fine detail to your art prompt, enhancing the composition, color scheme, or lighting of the image.
• Explore a set of common characteristics to define the content of your image, allowing the neural networks to generate art that aligns with your desired outcome.
• Consider the aspect ratio of your image, aiming for a visually pleasing result that considers the desired composition.
• Explore a wide range of color palettes, experimenting with vibrant colors, pastel colors, or other color schemes that align with your desired aesthetic.
• Use word prompts to guide the neural networks in generating the desired image, incorporating specific keywords, phrases, or text prompts that describe the content, lighting, or composition of the art.
• Use prompt ideas incorporating volumetric lighting, a technique that creates a dramatic, cinematic look and feel in the art prompt.
• Enhance the composition of your image prompt, considering the rule of thirds, leading lines, or other composition techniques that result in a visually striking image.

AI Art Prompts: Final Thoughts

Understanding AI art prompts plays a crucial role in unleashing the creative potential of AI art generators, so hopefully, you found this article helpful.

By providing specific details and references, these prompts guide AI algorithms to generate imaginative and captivating artwork across various mediums such as photography, painting, digital art, illustration, and film stills. Using framing, lighting, color schemes, and other advanced techniques further enhances the quality and realism of the AI-generated art.

If you are interested in exploring the world of AI art and want to try your hand at creating your masterpieces, there are lots of AI art generators available (some of them are free!)

By using these AI art prompt examples and honing your writing skills, you can unlock endless artistic possibilities. It’s time to let your imagination soar with the power of AI!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you make a good AI art prompt?

Creating a good AI art prompt involves a few key considerations:

• Be specific and transparent in your prompt description, providing enough details for the AI to understand your desired outcome.
• Consider the intended art form, style, and subject matter of the artwork, guiding the AI’s interpretation of the prompt.
• Provide enough information to guide the AI and allow room for creativity and exploration.
• Experiment with different prompts to see what works best for your goals, preferences, and desired outcomes.

What is the best prompt generator for AI art?

Midjourney is one of the best and most popular prompt generators for AI art that I’ve come across. You’ll get stunning results and a like-minded community on Discord with it. However, it isn’t free, and using it is more complicated than other AI art generators like Canva.

The best prompt generator for AI art will depend on your needs, preferences, and desired outcomes. It’s a good idea to explore different prompt generators, experiment with their settings, and find the one that best suits your artistic vision.

Read More

• Dall-E Examples of AI Art for Beautiful Art & Images