Color Study I

From the title and thumbnail of this article, you can easily guess which was the success and which the failure.  After days and days of struggling to figure out curve vertices and control points, I realized that there was no way to predict when my brain would crack open allowing that breakthrough to come. In the meantime, I wanted to continue to create and post work, practice being a critical part of my continued learning and development in generative art.  Luckily, the color goal, though challenging, proved more tractable.

I had a couple of sub-tenets to my goal.  I wanted to create an approach to generative color that was systemized, entirely randomized, and packaged in such a way as to be repeatable for any project.  I wanted to support a full range of hues, analogous colors, complementary colors, tints, shades, and tones.  And ultimately, I wanted consistently harmonious results.  A model that produced combinations that made me recoil on sight was unacceptable. The first couple of models I built were clunky and crude, but as I persisted, they eventually gave way to the clean, simple model used in this project.

The model is based on tetradic complements using the HSB color mode. An array of tetrads encompassing the entire color wheel is initially set up.  In each iterative generation, a primary hue is randomly selected and forms the basis of a working tetrad. With a design comprised of four major elements, random hue-element associations are then established.  Finally, saturation and brightness values are randomly selected, within a set of given constraints, for each of the major elements. Swatches are added to incorporate white, black, and the fully saturated, brightest hues of the tetrad. For this exercise, all elements drawn are 100% opaque.  The result is Color Study I, now open for minting on fxhash.xyz.

::tezos-storage-pointer[]{contract="KT1BJC12dG17CVvPKJ1VYaNnaT5mzfnUTwXv" path="ledger::19766" data_spec="FX-GEN-DATA-002"}

The “I” in the title is a reference to the fact that I expect there to be additional and deeper explorations to come on the subject of color. Color and shape (when that breakthrough finally happens) will serve to keep this coder happy for a very long time.  Throw in some generative literary elements, another exploratory vector, and I will be down the well for good.

As always, I had such lift beneath my wings from the generous p5.js community - both at large and in the fx(hash) discord.  I am forever grateful.

Love and creativity always,

Wanda