Alright, let me tell you about this “Rafael Valdez” thing I was messing around with today. It was kinda interesting, actually.
So, first off, I heard about Rafael Valdez from a buddy of mine who’s really into generative art. He was going on and on about it, saying it’s like, the next big thing. I figured, “What the heck, I’ll give it a shot.”
I started by looking around online. Just Googled “Rafael Valdez generative art” and stuff like that. Found a few articles, some blog posts, and a whole bunch of images. The images were pretty cool – lots of abstract shapes and colors, kind of chaotic but also somehow organized. It was the organized chaos that really grabbed me.
Next, I tried to figure out how to actually do it. This is where things got a little tricky. Turns out, Rafael Valdez isn’t a piece of software or anything like that. It’s more like a style, inspired by the artist Rafael Valdez himself. So, no easy “download this” button.
I dug a little deeper and found some people talking about using Processing. Heard about Processing before, it’s a free, open-source coding language and environment that’s popular with artists. I downloaded it, fired it up, and stared blankly at the screen for a good 15 minutes.
Then, I found some tutorials online. Thank god for YouTube. There were a few videos that showed how to create basic generative art patterns using Processing. I started by copying some of the code from these tutorials, just to get a feel for how things worked. I changed some numbers, played around with the colors, and watched as the screen exploded with different shapes.
After messing around with the tutorials for a while, I started trying to create my own stuff. I didn’t really have a plan, to be honest. I just started typing in random numbers and letters, and seeing what happened. Most of the time, it was a complete mess. But every once in a while, I’d stumble on something that looked kind of interesting.
One thing I realized is that randomness is key. The more random the input, the more unpredictable the output. I started using the `random()` function in Processing a lot, to generate random numbers for things like color, size, and position. This helped create that chaotic, organic look that I was going for.
I spent a few hours just experimenting, tweaking parameters, and seeing what happened. It was pretty addictive, actually. It’s like playing with a digital sandbox. You never know what you’re going to get, and that’s part of the fun.
In the end, I came up with a few images that I was pretty happy with. They weren’t perfect, but they had that Rafael Valdez vibe – that mix of chaos and order. I saved them as PNG files and posted them on my Instagram.
It was a fun little project, and I learned a lot about generative art and Processing. I’m definitely going to keep messing around with it. Who knows, maybe I’ll even create something that’s actually good someday.
So, yeah, that’s my Rafael Valdez experiment. It’s not rocket science, but it’s a cool way to make some interesting art. Give it a try sometime, you might be surprised at what you can create.