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Simon Willison prompts Claude Opus 5.5 to build a photo-painting artifact

What happened

AI digest

On 24 October 2026, Simon Willison reported that he gave Claude Opus 5.5 High a prompt asking it to build an artifact that, once a photo is opened, draws a version of that photo within seconds using a canvas element and a simulated brush. The report notes that he had previously had Claude Fable simulate a watercolour illustration effect with P5.js. Progress so far stays at the level of building the artifact and describing its effect; the report does not mention further testing or a release.

Written by AI from the reports · updated 1 h ago

Timeline

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Oct 24
  1. Simon Willison
    Quick Study

    Tool: Quick Study Prompt to Claude Opus 5.5 High : Build an artifact where you open a photo and it rapidly (in a few seconds) paints a version of that photo using a canvas element and simulated paintbrush See also my previous experiment getting Claude Fable to simulate a watercolor illustration with P5.js.

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