Maud

Who she is

Named for Maud Lewis (1901–1970), who painted from a one-room house in Nova Scotia on whatever came to hand: boards, cookie sheets, the walls and door of the house itself.

The name is a reminder of the problem, not a claim to have solved it. Lewis was one hand making one picture at a time.

The problem she is for

Nobody is going to pay to illustrate two thousand out-of-copyright books. Poe cannot be asked what his abbey looked like, and there is no budget to have someone answer for him.

So the choice is not between these pictures and better ones. It is between these and none.

How she works

Three steps.

Evidence. She reads what the book already says about how it should look — its colours, its recurring words, the mood of each passage. No model, no cost.

Judgement. A person writes the art direction against that evidence: the medium, the palette, what must never be drawn. Change one line and every picture in the book changes with it. That is what makes a set look like a set.

Pictures. The prompts are assembled from that direction, never written by hand, and only then does anything get generated.

The expensive, unreliable step comes last on purpose.

Who decides what gets illustrated

Not which books suit pictures — who decides.

Public domain: we do. The author is long dead and there is nobody left to ask.

Your own book: you do. Bring your own images, commission them, use this, or have none. All four are fine, and none is the default.

What she is not

Not a replacement for someone who can draw. Where there is an illustrator, hire the illustrator.

Every plate says what it is. The book records that its pictures were generated, and each one carries a written description in your language.