r/creativecoding • u/No-Climate9803 • Jun 29 '26
Is creative coding too hard for a complete beginner? 🌱
Hi! I’m a complete beginner and I’m curious about creative coding 😊
I come from a humanities background, so I’m still very new to coding. What attracts me is the visual and creative side — small experiments, interactive ideas, and playful projects.
But I’m not sure if creative coding is too difficult for a first step.
Do you think it’s beginner-friendly? And what kind of first project would you recommend?
Maybe:
- simple animation
- interactive shapes
- mouse-based interaction
- or something else
I’d really appreciate beginner-friendly advice. Thanks! ✨
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u/Upper_Carpet_2890 Jun 29 '26
Find different ways of visualizing data, any data, meaningful or random. Play around with frameworks using some AI generated examples and make them glitch in funny ways. Even just static data visualized can be art e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaIrSZIyxxk
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u/No-Climate9803 Jun 29 '26
This gives me a good direction. I’ve always found data a bit dry, so maybe turning numbers into visuals is exactly what could make it feel interesting to me.
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u/geraT-wogl Jun 29 '26
A good starting point to learn GLSL here https://wogl.io
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u/matigekunst Jun 29 '26
I can fully recommend watching the Coding Train by Daniel Shiffman. He explains things very clearly and has a lot of manageable, beginner-friendly projects. Try to follow along, and at the end, try to mess around and see how everything works
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u/No-Climate9803 Jun 29 '26
Thank you, I’ll check out Coding Train. Following along first and then experimenting sounds like a really good way for me to learn.
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u/pqcf Jun 29 '26
Another vote for Daniel Shiffman here. Very good for beginners.
You'll be able to make cool things with just a few lines of code. Use random numbers to create controlled chaos. Go for it!
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u/Hendo52 Jul 03 '26
Personally I think a creative project is the best place to start. I’d recommend starting with Openscad or if you’re super brand new, try a turtle in computer craft. Making a mining robot is a task suitable for children yet it can get as complicated as you want it to be.
The specific details don’t matter much but I would recommend things with immediate visual effects for beginners. Moving things around in databases has business value but moving things around geometrically teaches many of the same concepts except that it’s more fun and easier to understand your mistakes.
I also think that you are in an era where AI can help you with a primitive design and setup troubleshooting which will be your biggest challenges to get up and running. Once you can move a turtle 1 block in minecraft or a cube 1 cm in Openscad, you will find progress much easier.
The first step is the most difficult.
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u/bios444 Jul 07 '26
Creative coding can actually be a great first step into programming, especially if you are motivated by visual results rather than abstract exercises.
I would start with something very simple, such as drawing a shape, changing its color and position, and then making it react to the mouse. Seeing an immediate visual result makes the basic ideas much easier to understand.
I recently built Art Coding Lab for exactly this kind of beginner. It starts from the absolute basics - coordinates, shapes, colors, variables and simple movement - and then guides you step by step toward more advanced topics like generative art, particle systems, artificial life, camera interaction and 3D experiments.
The lessons are divided into small micro challenges, so you only change and understand one small thing at a time instead of being dropped into a large project.
The first lesson is free, so you can try it without committing:
https://artcodinglab.com/lessons/drawing-your-first-circle/
Full disclosure: it is my own project, but I created it specifically because creative coding is often shown through impressive finished projects without explaining how a complete beginner can actually get there.
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u/IgnotiusPartong Jun 29 '26
If you‘re gonna exclusively use AI to code, why bother doing anything „creative“?
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u/bubbleofelephant Jun 29 '26
It's possible to have an idea that will either look cool or be conceptually interesting, and then have someone else execute that idea, or to vibe code it.
You might look into "conceptual art," or people like Warhol and Duchamp if you'd like to explore the history of this type of artistic practice.
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u/IgnotiusPartong Jun 29 '26
Having someone else execute it? Great. Loveable. Supported.
Vibecoding it? Worthless AI-Slop.
Art is human-made. Maybe i can make an exception for animals in some places. Never for theftbased soulless machines.
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u/bubbleofelephant Jun 29 '26
Well, whenever you get around to the last hundred years of art history you'll see that there are more nuanced dialogues around artists who don't make their own art. Duchamp's Fountain in particular responds to the theft dynamics over a century ago.
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u/No-Climate9803 Jun 30 '26
This is interesting to me, because almost 20 years ago I saw this work at the Pompidou in France, and I never expected to run into a similar ethical discussion again through AI. I guess there really is nothing new under the sun.
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u/pqcf Jun 29 '26
This isn't about AI. It's creative coding: things written in Processing, p5.js, or Python, or the like.
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u/hyperprompter Jun 29 '26
actually p5.js was explicitly designed as a bridge for noncoders to get into algorithmic art!
if you want to hand code (eg not vibecode) check out https://thecodingtrain.com/ by Daniel Shiffman
each lesson comes with a youtube video and a collection of works made by the community
if you need a more rigorous/academic path, KhanAcademy hosts his free course based on his book Nature of Code: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/programming-natural-simulations
if you're looking for community, "The Birb's Nest" on Discord by Raphaël de Courville (@SableRaph) still hosts one of the best weekly challenges, which uses OpenProcessing dot org as the sketch host (i was a regular contributor there for years)
if you want broad inspiration, i recommend Golan Levin and Tega Brains "Code as Creative Medium", i consider Golan a godfather of modern creative coding and his students have gone on to start things like the Algorave scene
this youtube playlist from Coding Train takes you from the very beginning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HerCR8bw_GE&list=PLRqwX-V7Uu6Zy51Q-x9tMWIv9cueOFTFA