Circlecells

Yesterday’s generative art piece, called “Circlecells” (these names are amazing, I know):

Detail:

The code is on GitHub. I also posted a few process pics to Twitter yesterday. There are also three other accompanying pieces in the set generated with different seeds: 02, 03, 04.

Explanation:

• There’s a 20×20 grid which gets populated with an initial seed population of living/dead cells. (I get a random value between 0 and 5; if it’s 0 or 1, the cell is alive.)
• The lines are drawn from any living cells to any immediately neighboring living cells.
• The size of each circle is dependent on how many living neighbors the cell has.
• The initial round is drawn in light tan, then the grid is run through a modified Conway’s Game of Life (any cells with 2, 3, or 5 living neighbors are alive in the next round).
• Two more iterated rounds are drawn, one in a slightly darker tan and the last in dark red. (Drawing is done with the multiply blending mode.)
• I textured the piece in Photoshop afterwards, using some Kyle T. Webster brushes — add canvas, add noise, encaustic grit, a couple others that I can’t remember.