Assignment Prompt: Create your own screen drawing: self-portrait, alien, monster, etc. Use 2D primitive shapes – arc(), curve(), ellipse(), line(), point(), quad(), rect(), triangle() – and basic color functions – background(), colorMode(), fill(), noFill(), noStroke(), stroke(). Remember to use createCanvas() to specify the dimensions of your window and wrap all of your code inside a setup() function
I started this assignment by reflecting about what I’d like to draw. Like so many assignments at ITP, from this early perspective at least, we had a lot of agency to take this in any direction. I recently came back from a trip to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park, so images of the outdoors are still fresh in my mind. After doing some research into the National Parks’ design system for Visual Language, I decided to make my own outdoor drawing.
I’m not very experienced in drawing, but regardless, with the assignment in mind I tried to keep the shaped in my sketch to those that I knew were possible with 2D primitives in p5. Part of my goal with the assignment was to familiarize myself with the basic drawing functions, including curves, before we moved on to more advanced concepts.
Along the way, my final image transformed. I started with a blue background and bright green grass— a sunny day, with trees and a river taking center stage. But when I looked at my screen after being away for a while, the brightness was a little jarring, and the river just didn’t look right. I tried varying the background to look more like a sunset— that looked better!
Then I started to move the sun around until it look natural. Behind the mountains or fully visible? Closer to the red part of the sunset or higher up? This was not a very scientific process— I looked at a couple sunset pictures but ultimately just went with my intuition.
After getting rid of the rivers (and my use of the curve function,) the screen looked a little too barren.
“Well, the assignment did mention a self-protrait as inspiration… How about I add a stick figure backpacker?”
This did the trick— now the image has a little more movement and a central character. I added some stars to the night sky emerging as the sun fades away.
The final image captured a little taste of the magic that I remember of the Tetons in the evening.
To see the code for this image, go to this link: https://editor.p5js.org/nkumar23/sketches/JujD9a_vr