Summary & Key Takeaways ​

• Simon Willison experimented with Claude Opus 5.5.
• The AI generated a tool that paints photos onto a canvas element.
• It uses simulated paintbrush strokes and Sobel edge detection.
• No external libraries were used beyond Google Fonts.
• This builds on previous experiments with AI-simulated art.

Our Commentary ​

Simon Willison's experiments are always a delight. Getting an AI to generate a functional canvas painting tool with just a prompt is pretty wild. It makes me think about how much of our front-end boilerplate could eventually be AI-generated.