I think I’ll just surprise myself
Posted by Dan on Oct 1st, 2009
2009
Oct 1
My process, such as it is:
- I have an idea, like the Voronoi sudoku, so
- I write some code,
- Which generates some images,
- Which gives me ideas for changing the code.
Lather, rinse, repeat. The process seems to work best when it’s slightly out of control. How is it out of control?
- When I’m working on the code, I can’t visualize what the image will look like.
- I usually introduce some sort of randomness, which means I really can’t know what will happen.
- I make mistakes.
The result is that I surprise myself, I end up with something that’s not exactly what I expected. This seems to be a nerdly recapitulation of something from Ehrenzweig’s The Hidden Order of Art:
The medium should be resistant enough to prevent over-planning.
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:31 am
Maybe so the medium should be more resistant to grey, at least when all those saturated colors are present. Shades of grey could be very nice all by themselves, with some black to punch it up.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:14 am
The color pattern is driven by a sudoku, which means 9 different colors, and just about every pair of colors (9 * 8 = 72 pairs) will end up next to each other somewhere. When I’ve tried less garish palettes, the colors don’t separate as well. Even with this palette, there are combinations that don’t separate very well (dark green / dark blue, red / magenta, light green / cyan).
I think a more subtle palette might work better with a reduced color count. I’d have to find something other than a sudoku to generate the pattern.