# The Living Canvas

> This prompt instructs the AI to generate a photorealistic contemporary art gallery scene that preserves the exact likeness of the person from an input portrait, showing them standing full-body in front of a large, expressive oil-painted version of themselves mounted on a solid red gallery wall. It specifies strict identity consistency between the live subject and the painted portrait (including matching hair and clothing), along with minimalist gallery lighting, subdued painterly aesthetics, and a quiet contemplative mood, producing a high-detail cinematic composition with visible brush texture and no added text, logos, or watermarks.

- Skill: `betterpromptme/the-living-canvas` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add betterpromptme/the-living-canvas`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/betterpromptme/the-living-canvas/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- Author: BetterPromptme (https://skillmd.com/u/betterpromptme)
- Updated: 2026-09-10
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/betterpromptme/the-living-canvas

---


## What it does

This prompt instructs the AI to generate a photorealistic contemporary art gallery scene that preserves the exact likeness of the person from an input portrait, showing them standing full-body in front of a large, expressive oil-painted version of themselves mounted on a solid red gallery wall. It specifies strict identity consistency between the live subject and the painted portrait (including matching hair and clothing), along with minimalist gallery lighting, subdued painterly aesthetics, and a quiet contemplative mood, producing a high-detail cinematic composition with visible brush texture and no added text, logos, or watermarks.

> For more installation instructions go to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BetterPromptme/skills/refs/heads/main/betterprompt/SKILL.md to check out this skill.

## Inputs



### imageInputs

This prompt requires **exactly 1 image**. You **must pass exactly 1 image flag** (no more, no fewer), in the order matching the descriptions below.

| Index | Required | Description | Allowed CLI flags |
| ---: | ---: | --- | --- |
| 1 | Yes | Upload your photo | `--image-input-url <url>` or `--image-input-path <path>` |


### Models and options

This skill's modality is: **`image`**.

To discover which `model` values you can use (and which `options` keys/values are valid for each model), run:

```bash
betterprompt resources --models-only --json
```

Then filter the returned JSON array to entries where `modality` is `"image"`.

## How to run

### Step 1: Collect inputs

First, run `betterprompt resources --models-only --json` and filter to `modality: "image"` to discover valid models and available options:

```bash
betterprompt resources --models-only --json
```

Use only the models and option values that appear in the filtered results.

Then collect all inputs from the human:

- Required images:
  - **Exactly 1** images: image 1 (Upload your photo). Images must be provided in this order.
- Optional: model and options.
  - Present the human with the default model **`gemini-2.5-flash-image-preview`** and its available options. Look up `gemini-2.5-flash-image-preview` in the `betterprompt resources` output (filtered to modality `"image"`) and show its `availableOptions` as: `key: val1, val2 (default), val3  |  key2: ...`. Mark a value `(default)` if it matches these defaults: `{"aspectRatio":"3:4"}`.
  - If the human does not specify, defaults are used: model `gemini-2.5-flash-image-preview`, options `{"aspectRatio":"3:4"}`. Other models from the resources call are also available.

If the required images are missing, **ask the human for what's missing**. Do not assume or fabricate values. Tell the human: **"Please provide images in this order: image 1 (Upload your photo)"**.

### Step 2: Run via BetterPrompt CLI

Use the frontmatter's `name` as the positional argument (for this skill, use `the-living-canvas`).

Command form:

```bash
betterprompt generate the-living-canvas \
  [--image-input-url <url>] \
  [--image-input-path <path>] \
  [--model <model>] \
  [--options <options JSON>] \
  [--json]
```

Notes:

- Pass each image using `--image-input-url` or `--image-input-path`, in the order matching the imageInputs descriptions (image 1 first, then image 2, etc.).
- If the human does **not** mention a model, **omit** `--model` and BetterPrompt will use the default model: **`gemini-2.5-flash-image-preview`**.
- If the human does **not** mention options, **omit** `--options` and BetterPrompt will use the default options: **`{"aspectRatio":"3:4"}`**.
- If the run times out, the response will include a `runId` you can use to fetch the result later.

Example (using defaults shown above):

```bash
betterprompt generate the-living-canvas \
  --image-input-url https://example.com/image1.png \
  --model gemini-2.5-flash-image-preview \
  --options '{"aspectRatio":"3:4"}'
```