I wanna quit Ai Art

Hi there. So at this time I'm currently using Ai Art to generate thumbnails for my Youtube channel. I've always thought it would give a sense of professionalism to my videos and make them more appealing to viewers looking for fun content to watch.

I always said I'd work with the artist i pay to replace all the thumbnails with original and non exploitative artwork but while they work away i do more and more livestreams and consequentially end up creating more AI thumbnails.

Honestly its always bothered me using it but I've told myself I would always replace them when I have more money to hire another artist but I realize that's a pretty lame excuse and wanna actually make a change.

Over this weekend I'm hoping to remove all AI art from my channel to ensure my channel reflects the values I personally hold. With that in mind I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions for a free way to create the images myself, websites with images from the public domain and an editing tool to create these thumbnails. I'm not the most artistic or tech savvy person so the most easy to understand the better.