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I have always been interested in the arts. I am a frustrated artist. I have finally found a way to use my professional skills to create art. Creative coding is the use of computer programming to create art. Typically this is generative art which uses code to generate a design that might be too tedious to draw yourself, but creative coding can encompass many things.

I have put a lof of effort into learning Processing, a free IDE for creating computer art using Java. Being a web devloper, I have favored using its JavaScript version, Processing.js, but this has been superceded by p5.js. I have read two massive books on Processing; The Nature of Code: Simulating Natural Systems with Processing by Daniel Shiffman and Processing for Visual Artists by Andrew Glassner. At first I created the usual generative art but eventually I moved on to more representative art using vector designs and geometric art. Currently I am focused on isometic grids. I am experimenting with isometric cities and isometric rooms for that retro computer game look. You can find over 100 sketches of my experiments at Open Processing. You can find my Isometric Grid Towers sketch on this web site at https://www.williamsportwebdeveloper.com/isometric-grid-towers.aspx.

I first dabbled in cryptocurrencies back in 2014 when I bought 50,000 Dogecoin for $25. At its all time high, that $25 investment was worth around $36,865. This really got my attention and I have been investing in crypto ever since. I have also been learning blockchain programming, well, to be exact, Solidity for writing smart contracts for Ethereum. I have also been learning React since that JavaScript front-end is used for distributed applications. But where cryptocurrencies really apply to creative coding is in NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). Many artists/programmers are experimenting with ways to generate art work to sell as NFTs. Some coding is required because each art work needs to implement a set of attributes to become an unique collectible. For example, a cartoon animal needs to wear a different combination of hats and come in different colors or a slightly different design to be unique. Computer coding is not strictly necessary for this but it can automate the process of generating varitaions.