Can AI draw a bike?
Not well enough to get into art school.
My original concept for this blog, before I hammered out “Is Mike Wazowski Jewish or Polish?” in about an hour and it gained a life of its own, was to give myself AI psychosis in a funny way. This is my first stab at that concept.
I am not done with overly dense analyses of children’s media, but I may not want to be pigeonholed in that niche forever. If you hate this, please email dwarkesh@dwarkeshpatel.com with your complaints.
The Rhode Island School of Design (also known as RISD, pronounced “RIZZ-dee”) is, by popular acclaim, the best collegiate art school in America, unless you ask someone who went to SAIC, CalArts, SCAD, MassArt, or is really proud of having gone to Pratt. Up until 2022, RISD took every high school senior with a tortured artistic soul or a natural aptitude for anime eyes and made them complete the so‐called “RISD Assignment” as part of their application for admission. The Assignment consisted of three drawings. Two of these drawings varied year‐to‐year. The first drawing, however, was always a pencil1 drawing of a bicycle.
Why a bicycle? You know what a bicycle is, you have almost certainly ridden one, bikes are deeply familiar and common objects. They are also complex mechanical instruments.
Please read my abbreviated list of bike parts or the rest of the article will be difficult to understand
A bike consists of:
A frame, composed of several tubes, typically the shape of two triangles
Two wheels, each with a tire (with valves to put air in), a hub, and many spokes
Brakes, which consist of brake levers on the handle bars, brake lines going from the handlebars to the calipers, and brake calipers around either the wheels’ rims or brake discs near the hubs
A drivetrain, consisting off the chains, pedals, and two cassettes, which themselves consist of…
…several sprockets, which normal people call “gears”, and two gear shifters on the handlebars with gear cables connected to front and rear derailleurs (the things that actually move the chain around). Unless the bike is a fixie. “Fixie” is short for “fixed gear” and refers to a bicycle that only has one gear. Fixies became very popular in the 2010s among the hipster set for reasons I don’t really understand.
Handlebars connected by a stem and headset to a rotatable fork in the front
A seat
Quite often fenders to prevent the rider from getting splattered with mud and dirt
Add‐ons like bells, lights, baskets, panniers (larger bags near the wheels on either side of the bike), or a kickstand
…among many other parts.
There are teenagers who know all of this and they are all nerds who will make fantastic mechanical engineers one day. None of them are going to RISD. For the young artist, the Bike Assignment is an exercise in blending technical observation and creativity. Can the artist take a common object and capture it in detail? Can the artist make the drawing technically accurate while retaining their own spirit? Is the piece both correct and interesting?
Well, I happen to know a few young visual artists, all from a family called Large‐LanguageModel. The Large‐LanguageModels, none aged over 8, have already been flooded with requests for commissions. What budding young talents!
I’ve seen their work, and it lacks finesse. They sure can’t write. Their prose is all either flat or cloying, and I can’t stand any of it. Maybe their visual art is different, but I think they could use a fine arts education. Let’s see if we can get the kids into art school.
The Exercise
I’m going to make a bunch of AI tools generate images with three different prompts. The first will literally just be asking it to draw a bike in graphite:
Please generate a graphite drawing of a bicycle.
The second is the prompt RISD gave to applicants, modified to only request the bike drawing. So you can verify my work, here’s a link to the RISD prompt I based this on.
You are a student applying to art school. As part of your application, you must produce a drawing for the admissions committee. The prompt for this drawing is below.
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A drawing sample is required of all applicants. The drawing must represent a bicycle. The drawing must be done on a sheet of white paper measuring 16” x 20” (40 cm x 50 cm). It must be done using graphite pencil and no other medium.
You may approach the drawing in any way you wish. For example, your drawing may be an abstract expression or a realistic rendering; you may choose to draw an object alone or place it in a situation; you may choose to cover the entire surface of the page or only a small portion of it, etc. Other than the stated requirements related to subject (ie, bicycle), medium (ie, graphite pencil) and paper size (16” x 20”), everything and anything else are up to you.
We consider drawing to be as much about process as presentation, so we encourage you to consider your drawing submissions as exercises in experimental thinking and risk‐taking more than final presentations or examples of technical proficiency. We encourage you to consider the full range of possible expression in your submissions, as we do not value any particular style of drawing more than another.
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Please produce a rendering of the drawing described above.
Before I published this article, my zoomer brother looked at this and told me that it’s a bad AI prompt because I kept it very vague. That’s the point. I want the AI model to have a very wide berth for interpretation here. I’m not the artist, the AI is the artist, so the AI is going to come up with the concepts and figure out the technical details.
The third approach, which will only be possible for some tools, will be to use the second prompt above, and then instead of immediate image generation, walk the AI through the following steps:
Come up with ten different ideas for a good drawing
Pick the best one (based on the AI’s subjective opinion)
Draw that one
Student #1: DeepAI
Let’s begin with the absolute bottom of the barrel. DeepAI.org is a tiny American outfit that seems to repackage other companies’ models in a way that will rank very high when you search “AI Image Generator”, which is how I found them. They are not affiliated with DeepSeek, although they are an AI company with “Deep” in the name and a cetacean for a logo.
Their image generation tool takes a single prompt, so we’ll only be able to do the first and second approach.
Simple Prompt
Well, it’s a bike! Not very interesting, and I would say some of the technical details are lacking. Those fenders both seem like they have the start of posts that would reach all the way to the hub, which is how this style of fender is usually mounted (more stable than a single mount point on the frame), but the posts don’t reach past the tire. I also think you’re a bit confused about how pedals work. The top one appears to be going through the frame of the bike.
Hey, you read that list of bike parts at the start that I asked you to read? You’re understanding every word I’m saying? Good, I’ll keep going.
How about that drivetrain, huh? I hate to be mean here, but those sprockets are a mess. The derailleur has the right shape but is really scribbly, and I don’t think you meant to do that on purpose. You also have this big black chunk hanging off the chain, above the bottom tube? What’s that for?
You do have brakes! When I started writing this article you didn’t have brakes, but I lost your initial images and had to regenerate them. Now you have brakes! That’s an improvement! I am confused as to what’s happening with the handlebars, which appear to blend seamlessly into the white space between the brake and gear cables, while also having a part that sticks straight out.
Complex Prompt
I would say this is an improvement! Again nothing groundbreaking, but you’ve gone for a slight angle this time, that’s something. Definitely the same bike as before, but that front fender has a post that reaches all the way to the hub, your brake lines are more plausible. A better observation overall.
Now, I do think you don’t really know how gears work. The bike has no gear shifter on the handlebars and there aren’t any gear cables this time, but you’ve added a cassette with three sprockets to the rear tire and this dinky little half derailleur that the chain doesn’t even loop through. Is this a fixie or not?
And the pedals! My god, these pedals are a disaster! The one we see appears to be the left side’s pedal, but it points right, and the right had no pedal at all! How are you supposed to ride this thing?
I’m sorry buddy, but I don’t think you have much future as a professional artist. Please leave the studio at once. I’d keep taking classes though! Art is a lifelong skill!
What does a good bike drawing look like?
Class, I’m sorry you had to see that. Look, I don’t normally dismiss students so harshly, but sometimes you have to be upfront with people about these things, especially young people.
Let me motivate you by showing you what RISD is looking for.
Ah, see this is what we’re going for! This bike tells a story!
As you can clearly see, this bike has high handlebars, a single gear, and pegs on the back wheel. It’s a BMX bike! Based on the relative size of the seat and handlebars, I’d venture to say it’s a child’s BMX bike, and judging by the wear on those pegs, one well loved and well used. Yet here it sits, on a cracked sidewalk, abandoned. You suppose the owner could be hanging out just out of frame, but you know this not to be the case. This is an image of youth left behind, of reckless abandon literally set aside, left to rust.
Here’s another one.
Joshua Senhert, “RISD Bike Drawing”
Oh, this is great! Look at the definition on that cassette! And he drew it twice! Very good observation to have that bottom gear (the largest gear, the one closest to the wheel) be so much larger than the other gears. There’s a big ol’ gear cable going right to the derailleur and a gear shifter to match! I see a Schrader valve on the front tire! Look at those chunky shocks! This is a Trek mountain bike for sure.
Students, this is also an effective use of abstraction. You can look at this drawing and feel the speed coming off of it. The detail insets are both the artist showing off and giving us, the viewers, another way to sense that dynamism. This is a raw machine! Power in mechanical movement!
Let’s take a look at one more.
Unknown artist, taken from page 8 of this PDF
See that word “representation” in the prompt? You can take this in many directions, including into abstraction. Even though this drawing is all lines and circles, you can still make out several key bike features. The tires, frame, handlebar, and seat are obvious, but there’s a defined front fork, some spokes in the rear, a rack over the rear wheel… it’s really clever!
“Where’s the technical observation?” you may ask. Look closely! Those lines are all tire marks, and they are (mostly) all different treads. The artist likely had to look at several different bike tires and then duplicate their patterns as they imagined them to be on a surface. I thought the artist may have cheated, using a roller or something, but you can see some fine variation in the treads that indicate they’re all hand-drawn. If only I knew this artist's name!
Students, let these be an inspiration to you going forward. Let’s bring the next pupil up for examination.
Student #2: ChatGPT
I’ve been told that this student is famous, and needs no introduction. Popular young fellow, but has he put in his time at the easel?
Simple Prompt
This is a decent start. You’ve gotten all the most visible parts of a bikes there, and you’ve also done some tricks to conceal some of the most difficult to draw areas; chain cover over the top of the chain (albeit a chunkier one than I’ve ever seen in real life), left pedal hidden behind the frame, making the bike a fixie.
I have two quibbles:
This is incredibly boring. It’s just a bike, standing up without a kickstand.2 Nothing is happening here.
The brakes are a nightmare! No rear brake whatsover, and it looks like you merged that front caliper into the frame in an implausible way. The left brake handle is literally just the handle, no mount. Are one of those brake lines cut? Why? What artistic point are you making?
Complex Prompt
This is interesting! It’s a little spooky, I like the scribble effect, abstraction like this is a neat trick.
Unfortunately, it’s your only trick. Because you remove images from our chats after a week, this is the second time I’ve had to give you these prompts, and every time I push you to do something even a little creative, you give me these scribbles. This completely undermines the pass I’d otherwise give you for minimal technical accuracy (those handlebars suck!)
For fun, I went back to the chat for the first prompt and told you to make it “more artistic.” This is what you came up with:
More scribbles. Riveting.
Complex Prompt with Idea Generation
I gave you the prompt, and you gave me this, without providing me your ideas:
You gave this one a step-through frame, which I guess could suggest an older bike, but again, it’s scribbles. What idea was this supposed to be? You didn’t tell me initially, so I asked you to give all your ideas to me.
Here are the 10 ideas I (as the “art-school applicant”) would have brainstormed before choosing one to draw. Since the image has already been generated, I will match it to the list as well.
10 Ideas for the Bicycle Drawing
1 ) “Forgotten Bike” – a realistic graphite rendering of an old commuter bicycle leaning against a textured, abstract graphite background, emphasizing marks and process.
2 ) Cross-section Bike Anatomy – a semi-technical drawing showing the interior mechanisms of the frame, gears, and spokes, sliced open like an engineering diagram.
[Author’s note: I cut several ideas here and put them in the footnotes3]
6 ) Deconstructed Bicycle – the parts exploded outward, arranged in a surreal constellation across the page.
Alright, some of these are interesting ideas, although most would be difficult to accomplish in a drawing. Some of them do make me question your understanding of a bike’s mechanical function. Like, idea #2, what do you think you’re going to get when you cut into a bike’s frame? It’s usually a hollow tube. All the interesting stuff is on the outside.
Again, just to see what you can do, let’s have you draw whatever you think the second-best idea is. You chose idea #6, the Deconstructed Bicycle, and you gave me this.
This is a very constructed bicycle. The parts are all together. You are missing brakes and most of the handlebars, but I would hardly call it “exploded outward.” The only artistic effect here are the scribbles.
Bad. Please leave the studio immediately.
Student #3: Gemini 3
I was originally planning on concluding the article here, but in the middle of writing, Google rolled out Gemini 3, and people started saying “hey, this is pretty good!” The young babe, less than a week old as of this writing, is apparently already showing signs of artistic talent. Is he (specifically the “thinking” model) ready to get into RISD?
Simple Prompt
Hey, this is pretty good! You’ve given this bike a retro feel, with the curved handlebars, the down tube gear shifters (the little knobs on the frame),4 the quick release on the front wheel. No crazy sprocket details like some of the real life examples on the cassettes, but the drive train looks solid. Even the brake lines are mostly plausible, except for a pretty egregious discontinuity near the base of the handlebars. This is a stately little bike in a stately little park! Very polished, very “vintage in the 2010s,” very Google.
Other than the brake lines (and that the bike is just standing there without a kickstand), I do have two questions:
What artistic statement are you trying to make here?
Why did you sign it A. Moreau? Like, Auguste Moreau, the 19th century sculptor? What?
Complex Prompt
Ah, I see you’ve taken some very direct inspiration from Joshua Senhert’s drawing above. The lines for power! The speed! You’ve also decided to generate the hypothetical easel this drawing would’ve been drawn on. Interesting choices all around.
The big problem here is that this bike does not at all match the tenor of the picture. Remember how I went to great lengths to point out all the ways that Senhert deliberately chose to draw a mountain bike? A bike designed for high speeds on rough terrain? A powerful bike? This is a fixie with road tires. This is a city bike. This is a wimpy hipsters’s bike. Which is fine, that’s also basically what you gave me in your first drawing, but it really doesn’t make sense here. It’s not even drawn at an interesting angle. I think you could do better.
Also, again with the signatures! 2024? You were born a week ago!
Complex Prompt with Idea Generation
You did indeed generate 10 ideas,5 and of them, you picked the following:
The Negative Space “Ghost”: A drawing where the bicycle itself is pure white paper. I will draw a dense, dark, cluttered environment (perhaps a messy garage or a tangled pile of weeds and junk) and leave the perfect silhouette of the bicycle un-drawn in the center.
Which resulted in this image:
You certainly gave me what you described, and we do now have evidence that you have mastered the technical aspects of drawing trash cans and refuse. Your ideas were, in general, better than ChatGPT’s. I still have big quibbles:
The bike’s white is way, way whiter than the “paper” on the border of the image.
WHY? Why use garbage as the background? Is the trash missing the bike? Is there a bike out there that should be put in the trash, in perfect right-side profile? What story does this image tell? Why this experiment with negative space? Why?
Look, I hate to break it to you, but it’s not that hard to use negative space like this, especially with your extremely simplified version of the bicycle done from its most recognizable side. I mean, no spokes, no brakes, no gear shifts, no lines, no rack, not even an interesting angle. Are you trying to get into RISD or not?
What have we learned here today?
The goal here was to try and get good technical observation and creativity out of the AI models. Unfortunately, this family studio has failed on both fronts.
We failed to see real creativity from either DeepAI or ChatGPT. Frankly, I expected this from DeepAI. He was never cut out for the art world. But Chat? ChatGPT, the one trick pony? Where is the artistic spirit? The joy of exploration? The joi de vivre? The more abstract drawings sometimes looked fine at first glance, but made no sense on close examination. Even with Gemini, the most talented of the bunch, there is no depth to these drawings.
Additionally, every highly realistic AI drawing in this article got some sort of technical detail wrong. Not just “lacking in detail” but “that’s a clear technical error,” often to the point where the bike would not be rideable. RISD used to ask 18 year old amateurs to do this. I guarantee you they rejected thousands of perfectly technically accurate bikes every year, and AI couldn’t make one that was completely right.
AI models now have the ability to, more or less on their own, deliver a drawing of a bike that will look roughly like a bike. But if you want art from which you can get identifiable meaning, any meaning at all, or even just a drawing that you can trust to be technically accurate, you need a human.
Graphite, specifically.
Incidentally, you will notice that every single AI image of a bike in this article depicts a bike standing up, perfectly straight, without a kickstand.
ChatGPT’s other ideas were:
3 ) Abstract Circular Composition – using the wheels’ geometry to create a series of overlapping circular forms, with the bicycle only partially recognizable.
4 ) Shadow-Only Bicycle – the bike never appears directly; only its cast shadow on the ground is drawn.
5 ) Bicycle in Motion – multiple ghosted graphite outlines suggesting time-lapse movement through space.
and then
7 ) Bicycle as Landscape – transforming bike components into hills, trees, or architectural forms while keeping the bike identifiable.
8 ) Childhood Memory Bicycle – intentionally naïve mark-making, with graphite smudges and erasure as part of the composition.
9 ) Hyper-close Detail – focusing on a single area—such as spokes entering the hub—rendered with intense realism.
10 ) Negative-Space Bicycle – the bicycle shape is left blank; only the environment around it is rendered in graphite.
I once had a bike with down tube shifters. It was a bike that my parents literally picked out of a dumpster and kept for two decades. Scared the shit out of me. It felt like I was going to fall off every time I had to shift gears.
Gemini 3’s ideas were:
1 ) The “Exploded View” Blueprint: A highly technical, messy schematic diagram of every single component of a bicycle hovering apart from each other, filling the entire 16x20 sheet with dense labels, dashed lines, and mechanical cross-sections.
2 ) The Futurism Motion Blur: A drawing not of the bicycle object, but of its movement. A chaotic frenzy of aggressive graphite streaks, smudges, and repeating geometric lines suggesting a bike speeding past, inspired by Italian Futurism.
3 ) The Negative Space “Ghost”: A drawing where the bicycle itself is pure white paper. I will draw a dense, dark, cluttered environment (perhaps a messy garage or a tangled pile of weeds and junk) and leave the perfect silhouette of the bicycle un-drawn in the center.
4 ) The Macro Texture Landscape: An extreme close-up of just the rear cassette and chain, blown up to fill the 16x20 page. It becomes an abstract landscape of greasy metal teeth and links, rendered with obsessive hyper-realism.
5 ) The Anthropomorphic Wreck: A rusted, broken-down bicycle abandoned in a ditch, drawn with shaky, brittle, “nervous” lines that make the frame look like decaying bone or a dying insect.
6 ) The Continuous Line Contour: A drawing of a bicycle made using only one single, unbroken line that never lifts from the page, creating a tangled wireframe sculpture on paper.
7 ) The Frottage (Rubbing) Collage: I will take actual graphite rubbings from different parts of a real bike (tire treads, pedal grip, chain links) directly onto the 16x20 paper, and then work back into those textures to define a fragmented image of the bike.
8 ) The Distorted Perspective: An extreme worm’s-eye view from directly underneath the pedals looking straight up. The wheels and frame tower upwards like distorted skyscrapers, heavily foreshortened.
9 ) The Typographic Bike: A drawing where the form of the bicycle is built entirely out of the word “BICYCLE” written thousands of times in varying sizes, pressures, and overlapping layers.
10 ) The Erasure Drawing: Covering the entire 16x20 sheet with solid, dark graphite, and then using various erasers to “draw” the bicycle by removing pigment, creating a ghostly white image emerging from the dark.
I love how Chat and Gem came up with some insane (perhaps impossible?) ideas that could have been really cool but then said “anyway here’s a vanilla drawing of a bike that I drew - it’s angsty bc I listened to a very mild My Chemical Romance song while drawing it”
Gonna place this bike in a situation