As part of my ongoing exploration of AI-generated imagery, I set myself the challenge of reimagining one of Britain’s best-loved landscape paintings — John Constable’s The Hay Wain — but in the distinctive, industrial-era style of L.S. Lowry.

🧠 Step 1: Describing the Original

I began by using ChatGPT to analyse and describe The Hay Wain using the C.R.E.A.T.E. framework — a method designed to structure image prompts for AI generation. The description included composition, setting, palette, brushwork, and atmosphere — everything that gives Constable’s painting its character.

🎨 Step 2: Reimagining the Scene

Next, I asked ChatGPT to write a new prompt to recreate the scene in the style of L.S. Lowry, replacing Constable’s horse-drawn hay wagon with a green tractor — a subtle nod to the passing of time and rural modernity.

🤖 Step 3: Enter Adobe Firefly (and Exit Again)

I fed the prompt into Adobe Firefly, hoping it would interpret the Lowry style. Instead, it returned an image that leaned heavily on Constable’s style — lovely in its own way, but not what I was aiming for.

The reimagined haywain scene, not quite the LS Lowry style I was looking for.

🔁 Step 4: Back to ChatGPT (and DALL·E)

So I went back to ChatGPT, and this time used its built-in image generation tool to produce a Lowry-style version of the scene. This one hit the mark: a green tractor in a simplified, flattened landscape, complete with stick-like figures, muted tones, and a red-brick cottage — unmistakably Lowry.

🛠️ Step 5: Refining the Output

To bring the final image closer to a painted work, I edited it in Photoshop:

Added a canvas texture to replicate the look of oil on board
Applied gradient mapping to harmonise tones
Sharpened edges selectively to enhance brushwork

Then, using Nik Efex, I layered in a vintage feel:

Film grain
Muted tones
A soft vignette to give the image a subtle visual frame

📝 Step 6: Full Circle

In a final act of recursive creativity, I used ChatGPT once again — to write this blog post.

🖼️ The Result

A meeting of minds that never could have happened — Constable’s idyllic rural England seen through the stylised eyes of Lowry, realised with the help of artificial intelligence, and finished with traditional editing tools.

Not a photograph is sight, but this has used a lot of traditional photography skills. Whether this is art, pastiche, or just playful experimentation is for others to decide — but it’s a compelling example of how today’s tools can reimagine yesterday’s classics.

LS Lowry’s Haywain, a Digital Journey