Author: Ellina Chermit

In his talk about chance operations, Casey Reas introduces the idea that chaos always existed even before creation of the world, and that order was brought by the gods. He then claims that artists are now the ones who have been creating order, structure, and rationality. At first, I was a bit surprised by this view, because it seems to me that, in our modern world filled with structure and rigid rules of “shoulds” and “musts,” artists are actually the ones who are unafraid to bring self-expression outside of that “rational” box.

But then Casey goes on to talk about how artists can balance between complete randomness and total control, using random elements in their work to create interesting patterns and outcomes. He shares examples from his own work, where he created algorithms from scratch to produce highly animated pieces, trying to make something organic while combining different visual elements. This got me thinking about how some artists, myself included, prefer to stick to a specific vision or some kind of structure in their work, and it can be hard to incorporate randomness.

This talk pushed me to reconsider my own artistic process, whether it’s a simple drawing or a piece created through creative coding. Though i still feel like there should be a balance between randomness and some organization in art, I realized that i’d love to experiment with some unexpected and unconventionally creative elements in my future works.

When I was tasked with creating a self-portrait, I realized that my portrait wasn’t simply about representing my appearance, it was more about capturing my background. So, I decided to create a self-portrait set in the background of my hometown in the Northern Caucasus, including elements like the mountains and a horse.

Here’s the initial reference I sketched:

At first, I thought making the self-portrait would be a simple task, but I ended up making it way harder than needed by focusing on the overcomplicated background elements. However, looking back, this pushed me to learn a lot more than if I’d just gone for a simpler face portrait.

The main challenge for me was creating the mountains. For each individual mountain, I used simple triangles, a shape I used to struggle with. However, printing the coordinates helped me figure it out. I also wanted to create a mountain range, but I wasn’t sure how to add something resembling curves. I found this Reddit post that showed me how to do it: Creating Thick Curved Shapes.

Additionally, I wanted to add a gradient sky, which involved using loops to create the desired effect. I found this draft to help me with the technique: Gradient Sky Example.

Surprisingly, the most difficult part of the project wasn’t the background: it was trying to create the elements that represented me. I struggled with coding wavy hair, so I opted for a straight hairstyle instead. I also couldn’t figure out how to create side bangs using the arc function, so I decided to leave that out. The other challenge was creating a simple heart. I tried to make it using an arc, but that didn’t work out, so I came up with a solution: two circles and a triangle.

Looking back on this whole process, I really get the “vision vs. reality” thing now. Sketching out ideas and trying to turn them into something real was way more difficult than I thought. But it also pushed me to learn more coding functions, helping bring my vision to life.

Despite all the challenges and endless debugging, I honestly loved the process and the creative side of coding:) As time goes on, I hope I’ll get better at this, and eventually be able to create whatever I envision, with fewer limitations.

Attaching the code: