Generated Spectrum - My First Hybrid Art Project

May 25, 2022

I have become a huge fan of generative art in recent months. What I really enjoy about it is the tension between code as a very stringent structure and sequence of mathematically precise instructions, and the creativity that lies in the arrangement of these instructions to let the code produce pieces of art.

This blog post is about “Generated Spectrum”, my first generative art project consisting of a simple Python program which generates an image of 600 squares arranged in a 20x30 matrix. With a certain degree of randomness, each square gets a color assigned, following a color gradient inspired by Ellsworth Kelly’s “Spectrum”.

The code is very simple, you can find two versions of it on my Github page. The one named ”generated-spectrum.py” is the original version, the one named “generated-spectrum-for-beginners.py” is specifically for people who have never worked with code before. There, I have explained quite thoroughly what each line of code does. So, if you are a beginner and would like to generate your own images with my script: Download the file, have a look at the code to understand what it does and how you can manipulate it, and have fun generating images! If you have never executed a Python program before, you might want to check out this tutorial.

After generating a few pictures with this script, I chose the one I liked best:

I then used this generated image as a template for an acrylic painting on a canvas measuring 150x100 cm. In order to get sharp white lines, the entire canvas was painted in white, then masking tape was added to get the squares, and then it was painted white once again. The next step was to paint all the squares according to the generated image. I had never used masking tape with acrylic paint before, so I was quite nervous before pulling the tape off. But it worked really well and seeing the sharp lines was very satisfying!

I really enjoyed the process of creating this generative piece of art, particularly because the art work has not only materialized as a file saved on my computer, but taken form as an actual painting which now decorates my living room. Can’t wait to get started with my next project!