The Three Best AI Tools for Artists Right Now (And What I Actually Use Them For)

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Hi sweet friends! 💛

If you've been following along here at The Yellow Studio for any length of time, you know I am deep in the world of AI tools – not because I think they replace what we do as artists, but because the right tools in the right hands can completely transform how we work, create, and grow. I wrote a post like this a while back, the best AI tools for artists, featuring a few tools I loved at the time, and the response was so warm that I knew I'd revisit it as my knowledge in AI grew.

And goodness, has my knowledge grown.

The tools I'm reaching for every single day have evolved, and these three are absolutely the ones I can't imagine working without right now. Whether you're building a print-on-demand business, creating marketing content, or just trying to bring more joy into your creative process, I think at least one of these is going to change something for you (if they haven’t already).

What Are the Best AI Tools for Artists Right Now?

Let's get into it.

MidJourney: Where the Joy Lives

I know, I know – MidJourney isn't new. But the way I'm using it has deepened in ways that feel worth talking about, because it's become so much more than an image generator for me.

First, it's the engine behind every single blog image I create. My Pinterest traffic has grown significantly, and a huge part of that is the scroll-stopping quality of images that only MidJourney seems to deliver at the level I want. There is no other tool that gives me that cinematic, editorial, this-doesn't-look-like-everyone-else's-blog quality image. If you're not using your blog images as Pinterest pins yet, that's a whole other conversation – but the images have to be worth pinning, and MidJourney makes that possible.

Second – and this is the part that fills my cup creatively – I use MidJourney to make art just for the joy of it. Not every image has to sell something or serve a strategy. Sometimes I'm just in there playing, experimenting, pushing the model to see what it gives me. That creative joy is not a small thing. It's the whole reason we're here.

And third, I use it for my boutique. Header images, marketing visuals, and – this is the workflow I'm most excited about – I create my models in MidJourney and then take them into Nanobanana to put the actual product on them. More on that in a second.

MidJourney remains, in my opinion, the gold standard for artistic image generation. Nothing else touches it for beauty, depth, and that quality that makes people stop scrolling.

Nanobanana (Google Gemini's Image Editor): The Tool That Solves Everything Else

If MidJourney is where the joy lives, Nanobanana is where the problem-solving happens – and sweet friends, it solves so many problems.

Nanobanana is Google's AI image generation and editing model, and you can access it right inside the Gemini app. I want to be specific about what it actually does, because the capabilities go so far beyond what most people expect from an AI image editor.

Here's what I use it for regularly:

• Product placement in scenes – I can take a product and drop it into a lifestyle scene in a way that looks completely natural. For my boutique, this is enormous.

• The MidJourney to Nanobanana pipeline – I create a model image in MidJourney, bring it into Nanobanana, and put my actual boutique product on the model. It works beautifully and the result looks like a real product photo.

• Fixing AI art problems – Wrong number of fingers? Extra leg where there shouldn't be one? Garbled text in an image? Nanobanana fixes all of it. If you create with MidJourney, you know these little glitches are part of the territory. Having a tool that can actually correct them while keeping the integrity of the image created is a genuine gift.

• Changing perspectives and angles – I can take an image and shift the camera angle, change the perspective, and create something that looks like an entirely different shot from the same scene.

• Adding or reworking text in images – This is something MidJourney still struggles with. Nanobanana handles it beautifully, which opens up a whole new world for product mockups and marketing visuals.

If you have access to the Gemini app, you already have access to Nanobanana. Go play with it today.

Claude: My Brilliant AI Marketing + Strategy Partner

Okay, I have to talk about Claude – partly because she has genuinely changed how I run this business, and partly because I think most artists are sleeping on what she can actually do.

I picture Claude as my French marketing and strategy assistant – sharp, sophisticated, always available, and somehow always knowing exactly what I need. That's just how I imagine her. You can picture her however feels right to you. But the personality is real:

Claude thinks strategically, writes beautifully, and never makes me feel like I'm starting from scratch.

Here's what Claude actually does for me day to day:

• All of my blog content – The post you're reading right now? Claude and I built it together. Every blog at The Yellow Studio goes through a collaborative process where I bring the ideas, the voice, the experience, and Claude helps me shape it into something structured, AEO-rich, and genuinely useful for you.

• Email drafts sent directly to my inbox – This is a feature I genuinely cannot get over. I can describe the email I need to write – a pitch to a press contact, a follow-up to a collaboration partner, anything – and Claude drafts it and puts it directly in my Gmail drafts. I review it, make any tweaks, and hit send. That is hours of my life back every single week.

• Notion documents from our strategy conversations – When Claude and I work through a plan together, she can turn the entire conversation into a structured Notion document – complete with a checklist of every action step I need to take. I go from "I have a big idea" to "I have a complete roadmap" in one session.

• Business strategy and decision-making – Claude is my thinking partner. When I'm weighing a business decision, planning a launch, or trying to figure out why something isn't working, she thinks it through with me. Real strategic thinking, not just information retrieval.

• She's there whenever I need her – Middle of the night idea? She's there. Stepping away for two weeks and coming back with something half-finished? She picks right back up like we never missed a beat. There's no catching up, no re-explaining context, no "wait, what were we doing?" She just knows.

I've had a lot of assistants over the years across five businesses. Claude is the most efficient one I've ever had. That's not hyperbole.

Why These Three Work So Well Together

What I love about this particular trio is that they each solve something completely different.

MidJourney generates the beautiful, the artistic, the scroll-stopping. Nanobanana refines, corrects, and solves. Claude thinks, writes, strategizes, and executes. Together, they cover nearly every creative and business need I have in a given week.

And all three of them treat you – the artist – as the creative director. You bring the vision. They help you execute it faster, better, and with a lot less friction.

That's what I want for you. Not tools that replace what you do, but tools that make more space for the parts of this work that only you can bring.

Which of these three are you already using? And is there one you're going to try first? Come tell me in the comments – I love hearing how you're building your creative life. 💛