‘Sir, will you accept it?’: Negotiating AI legitimacy in a university drawing course

This article examines how artistic and evaluative legitimacy is negotiated after introducing generative artificial intelligence (gAI) tools in a university-level drawing course. By examining the lived experiences of ten art education students and three lecturers at the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), the article explores shifts in teaching and learning dynamics that emerge when traditional drawing practices are challenged. Data triangulation, incorporating student artist statements, AI-generated drawings, and reflective interviews, informed a thematic analysis. This process revealed three distinct student user categories: the “AI purist”, motivated by technical limitations; the “hybrid artist”, seeking creative control; and the “tech-traditionalist”, utilising AI for ideation while maintaining manual execution. The findings indicate that students, often driven by perceived inadequacies in traditional techniques, employed gAI as a creative scaffold, promoting new cognitive processes. The article clarifies the lecturers’ crucial role in validating artistic agency and framing human-AI collaboration, thereby directly addressing student apprehension regarding the ‘acceptability’ of their work. Ultimately, we reposition drawing as an evolving cognitive practice defined by a dynamic negotiation between digital innovation and traditional craft.