Silk: Interactive Generative Art
Remember as a child, creating art for art's sake? Just because it was pretty and an expression of yourself. I think sometimes as adults we stop creating because we start to think about our own talent compared to others. Thankfully for all of us, there's a website out there that brings out that care-free artist in all of us again. Silk Interactive Generative Art is a website that's all about creation.
The website itself is very minimalist, letting you focus on the art. There's not much to the controls, even trying to figure them out will create something special. You're given a palette of 7 colors, including gray. You can mix colors by dragging and dropping. This will create something of an after effect; you might have to move your mouse quickly to see the results. Play around with the mirroring and spiraling to create some pretty breathtaking creations.
Like this...
It's something else to create a thing of beauty then just wipe it away. It reminds me of playing with an Etch-a-Sketch. You'd try so hard to get the tiniest details perfect and sometimes end up shaking it out of frustration anyway. My friends and I have used Silk as a kind of game to create something with a little more permanence. The best way to describe it is a group art project. One person starts and makes something small. Then, using the share feature on the website, that person sends it to someone else and they add something; that pattern continues until we've created something wonderful. Then everyone gets to see the finished product.
Sometimes I like to see how big and beautiful I can make something with just one "brushstroke" or, not letting go of my mouse. I'd say it's created some nice results, wouldn't you? (Do you see the after effect of blue and green?)
Silk is a great website that allows you to take a break from life and create. You can Save or Share your creation or simply wipe it away. There's no rules and no guidelines. Now go create something beautiful.
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Comments
Carmelanirel wrote on March 3, 2015, 1:36 PM
That is so cool and even I (who can't draw anything) can create a pretty picture.. I never drew unless I had to because I was so bad (I did try to practice, but nothing ever came out of it) So I took my creativity into other formats, like dancing and writing.
GayleStorm wrote on March 3, 2015, 1:45 PM
Believe me, my artistic ability is limited to my writing. That's why I really enjoy this site; I feel good about what I create.
1Carmelanirel wrote on March 3, 2015, 1:48 PM
I really like the golden one and as for your writing, do you mean writing on sites like this, or do you do creative writing, like in writing poetry or stories?
GayleStorm wrote on March 3, 2015, 1:52 PM
I do both. Most of my poetry I haven't put online yet but I was planning on it.
1Carmelanirel wrote on March 3, 2015, 2:00 PM
Oh cool, a fellow writer..Have you considered publishing your work?
1MakeMoneyOnline wrote on March 3, 2015, 2:10 PM
WOW! Beautiful. This really brought back memories. When I was a kid, I was learning to program in software called Turbo Pascal. It contained a demo software written in it so one could explore the code and so on. It was called "Arty.pas" (.pas was the Turbo Pascal file ending). The software would create such shapes and by manipulating the code you could get different results. Ahhhhhh, good memories :)
GayleStorm wrote on March 3, 2015, 2:28 PM
I'm glad I could bring back some fond memories for you.
j2jworkz wrote on March 3, 2015, 3:28 PM
How fun, always a fan of the Etch, this might be up my non drawing wheelhouse.
GayleStorm wrote on March 3, 2015, 6:48 PM
I would very much like to actually.
1GayleStorm wrote on March 3, 2015, 6:49 PM
It's much more versatile than the Etch so hopefully it gets your creative juices flowing.
Carmelanirel wrote on March 3, 2015, 7:57 PM
That is wonderful. Do you have a plan? Like are you going to self-publish or go through an agent/publisher?
BarbRad wrote on March 4, 2015, 3:15 AM
Kind of fun. Always wondered how people created these designs.
GayleStorm wrote on March 4, 2015, 11:35 AM
At the moment, I don't have any sort of plan. Any suggestions?
1Carmelanirel wrote on March 4, 2015, 5:54 PM
Well it depends on if you are able to have your work edited (even Stephen King has help before his work is published). I personally can't afford an editor (for a 79,000 word novel it would cost over $1,000 for an editor) so I am wrote a query and synopsis to send to an agent, hoping someone will take me. I took Creative Writing classes in order to learn how to write a query and synopsis, but I am waiting for feedback from my instructor before moving on.
A good site that may help you with your query and synopsis is agentquery.com, I have been a member there for years and I have had both my writing instructors recommend this site.
Now if you feel your work is polished and ready for self-publishing, you could do what I did with my short story. (I only self-published the short story because the length made it easier to edit. However, I still had to resubmit it three times when some mistakes were pointed out to me. There are various places to self publish, Amazon is one, but they don't accept short stories. So I went with Smashwords.com and because I knew how to format it the way they require, I was able to save money on that, but as far as the cover design, I did spend some money to pay for a cover. On Smashwords, the book is not only available there, but also on Apple and Barnes and Nobles. Amazon is also a place they distribute, but the only way a book makes it there is if the author makes $2,000.
This is just a little of what I have learned over the years, if you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask, because I know the struggle of wondering how to publish.
BodieMor wrote on March 6, 2015, 12:22 PM
All your efforts here are beautiful! They make me want to get back to drawing and painting!