Genuary prompts, 2021–2026
Daily prompts for Genuary, the generative-art challenge held each January. Each prompt is followed by its credit.
Sources:
- 2026: https://genuary.art/prompts
- 2025: https://genuary.art/2025/prompts
- 2024: https://genuary.art/2024/prompts
- 2023: https://genuary.art/2023/prompts
- 2022: https://genuary.art/2022/prompts
- 2021: https://genuary2021.github.io/prompts
2026
| Day |
Prompt |
Credit |
| 1 |
One color, one shape. |
Piero |
| 2 |
Twelve principles of animation. |
Anna Lucia |
| 3 |
Fibonacci forever. |
PaoloCurtoni |
| 4 |
Lowres. |
Manuel Larino |
| 5 |
Write “Genuary”. Avoid using a font. |
Piero |
| 6 |
Lights on/off. |
George Henry Rowe |
| 7 |
Boolean algebra. |
PaoloCurtoni |
| 8 |
A City. |
PaoloCurtoni |
| 9 |
Crazy automaton. |
PaoloCurtoni |
| 10 |
Polar coordinates. |
Sophia |
| 11 |
Quine. |
Manuel Larino |
| 12 |
Boxes only. |
Stranger in the Q |
| 13 |
Self portrait. |
Jos Vromans |
| 14 |
Everything fits perfectly. |
Roni |
| 15 |
Create an invisible object where only the shadows can be seen. |
P1xelboy |
| 16 |
Order and disorder. |
Ivan Dianov |
| 17 |
Wallpaper group. |
Ivan Dianov |
| 18 |
Unexpected path. |
Baret LaVida |
| 19 |
16x16. |
Jos Vromans |
| 20 |
One line. |
Jos Vromans |
| 21 |
Bauhaus Poster. |
Piero |
| 22 |
Pen plotter ready. |
Sophia |
| 23 |
Transparency. |
PaoloCurtoni |
| 24 |
Perfectionist’s nightmare. |
Sophia |
| 25 |
Organic Geometry. |
Manuel Larino |
| 26 |
Recursive Grids. |
Piero |
| 27 |
Lifeform. |
Manuel Larino |
| 28 |
No libraries, no canvas, only HTML elements. |
Piero |
| 29 |
Genetic evolution and mutation. |
Monokai |
| 30 |
Its not a bug, its a feature. |
Bart Simons |
| 31 |
GLSL day. |
Piero |
2025
| Day |
Prompt |
Credit |
| 1 |
Vertical or horizontal lines only. |
Stranger in the Q |
| 2 |
Layers upon layers upon layers. |
Monokai |
| 3 |
Exactly 42 lines of code. |
Roni Kaufman |
| 4 |
Black on black. |
Stranger in the Q |
| 5 |
Isometric Art (No vanishing points). |
P1xelboy |
| 6 |
Make a landscape using only primitive shapes. |
Jonathan Barbeau |
| 7 |
Use software that is not intended to create art or images. |
Camille Roux |
| 8 |
Draw one million of something. |
Piter Pasma |
| 9 |
The textile design patterns of public transport seating. |
Piter Pasma |
| 10 |
You can only use TAU in your code, no other number allowed. |
Darien Brito |
| 11 |
Impossible day - Try to do something that feels impossible for you. |
Rachel Ehrlich & Recurse Center |
| 12 |
Subdivision. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 13 |
Triangles and nothing else. |
Heeey |
| 14 |
Pure black and white. No gray. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 15 |
Design a rug. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 16 |
Generative palette. |
Stranger in the Q |
| 17 |
What happens if pi=4? |
Roni Kaufman |
| 18 |
What does wind look like? |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 19 |
Op Art. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 20 |
Generative Architecture. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 21 |
Create a collision detection system (no libraries allowed). |
Darien Brito |
| 22 |
Gradients only. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 23 |
Inspired by brutalism. |
Melissa Wiederrecht & Roni Kaufman |
| 24 |
Geometric art - pick either a circle, rectangle, or triangle and use only that shape. |
Bruce Holmer |
| 25 |
One line that may or may not intersect itself. |
Multiple |
| 26 |
Symmetry. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 27 |
Make something interesting with no randomness or noise or trig. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 28 |
Infinite Scroll. |
Sophia (fractal kitty) |
| 29 |
Grid-based graphic design. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 30 |
Abstract map. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 31 |
Pixel sorting. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
2024
| Day |
Prompt |
Credit |
| 1 |
Particles, lots of them. |
Melissa Wiederrecht & Nicolas Barradeau |
| 2 |
No palettes. Generative colors, procedural colors, emergent colors. |
Luis Fraguada |
| 3 |
Droste effect. |
Stranger in the Q |
| 4 |
Pixels. |
Piter Pasma |
| 5 |
In the style of Vera Molnár (1924-2023). |
Melissa Wiederrecht & Piter Pasma |
| 6 |
Screensaver. |
Nicolas Barradeau, Yazid & Jess Hewitt |
| 7 |
Progress bar / indicator / loading animation. |
Piter Pasma |
| 8 |
Chaotic system. |
Darien Brito |
| 9 |
ASCII. |
Camille Roux |
| 10 |
Hexagonal. |
greweb |
| 11 |
In the style of Anni Albers (1899-1994). |
Roni Kaufman |
| 12 |
Lava lamp. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 13 |
Wobbly function day. |
Piter Pasma |
| 14 |
Less than 1KB artwork. |
Heeey |
| 15 |
Use a physics library. |
Amy Goodchild |
| 16 |
Draw 10 000 of something. |
Bruce Holmer & Michael Lowe |
| 17 |
Inspired by Islamic art. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 18 |
Bauhaus. |
Chris Barber |
| 19 |
Flocking. |
Shaderism |
| 20 |
Generative typography. |
Roni Kaufman |
| 21 |
Use a library that you haven’t used before. |
Neel Shivdasani |
| 22 |
Point - line - plane. |
Paolo Curtoni |
| 23 |
16×16. |
Marc Edwards |
| 24 |
Impossible objects (undecided geometry). |
Jorge Ledezma |
| 25 |
Recreate cool patterns, textures, shapes or things from photos using code. |
Piter Pasma |
| 26 |
Grow a seed. |
Monokai |
| 27 |
Code for one hour. At the one hour mark, you’re done. |
Amy Goodchild |
| 28 |
Skeuomorphism. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 29 |
Signed Distance Functions. |
Melissa Wiederrecht & Camille Roux |
| 30 |
Shaders. |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 31 |
Generative music / Generative audio / Generative sound. |
Neel Shivdasani & Monokai |
2023
| Day |
Prompt |
Credit |
| 1 |
Perfect loop / Infinite loop / endless GIFs |
arikwex, Reva |
| 2 |
Made in 10 minutes |
Daniel Simu (hapiel) |
| 3 |
Glitch Art |
generetame |
| 4 |
Intersections |
Yazid |
| 5 |
Debug view |
jenslabs |
| 6 |
Steal Like An Artist |
Daniel Catt |
| 7 |
Sample a color palette from your favorite movie/album cover |
Luca |
| 8 |
Signed Distance Functions |
Camille Roux |
| 9 |
Plants |
Lionel Radisson |
| 10 |
Generative music |
Steve Pikelny (scyclow) |
| 11 |
Suprematism |
Eric Davidson |
| 12 |
Tessellation |
Devi |
| 13 |
Something you’ve always wanted to learn |
huminaboz |
| 14 |
Aesemic |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 15 |
Sine waves |
Jess Hewitt, Yazid |
| 16 |
Reflection of a reflection |
Ryan |
| 17 |
A grid inside a grid inside a grid |
Andrea Diotallevi |
| 18 |
Definitely not a grid |
Daniel Simu (hapiel) |
| 19 |
Black and white |
Lionel Radisson |
| 20 |
Art Deco |
Artefakt (Artefakt7) |
| 21 |
Persian Rug |
arikwex |
| 22 |
Shadows |
Luca |
| 23 |
More Moiré |
Daniel Simu (hapiel) |
| 24 |
Textile |
Daniel Simu (hapiel) |
| 25 |
Yayoi Kusama |
Anna Lucia |
| 26 |
My kid could have made that |
Melissa Wiederrecht |
| 27 |
In the style of Hilma Af Klint |
Roni |
| 28 |
Generative poetry |
Roni |
| 29 |
Maximalism |
Steve Pikelny (scyclow), Yazid |
| 30 |
Minimalism |
Steve Pikelny (scyclow), Yazid |
| 31 |
Deliberately break one of your previous images, take one of your previous works and ruin it. Alternatively, remix one of your previous works. |
Alex Naka, RalenArc |
2022
| Day |
Prompt |
Credit |
| 1 |
Draw 10,000 of something. |
Michael Lowe |
| 2 |
Dithering. |
Anna Lucia |
| 3 |
Space. |
Lionel Radisson |
| 4 |
The next next Fidenza. |
Alexis André |
| 5 |
Destroy a square. |
Thomas Lin Pedersen |
| 6 |
Trade styles with a friend. |
Alex Naka |
| 7 |
Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing. |
Roni Kaufman |
| 8 |
Single curve only. |
Bruce Holmer |
| 9 |
Architecture. |
Lionel Radisson |
| 10 |
Machine learning, wrong answers only. |
Roni Kaufman |
| 11 |
No computer. |
Lionel Radisson |
| 12 |
Packing (squares, circles, any shape…) |
Richard Vigniel |
| 13 |
800x80. |
Ben Kovach |
| 14 |
Something you’d never make. |
Devi Parikh |
| 15 |
Sand. |
Thomas Lin Pedersen |
| 16 |
Color gradients gone wrong. |
Quag |
| 17 |
3 colors. |
Deniz |
| 18 |
VHS. |
GenerateMe |
| 19 |
Use text/typography. |
Piter Pasma |
| 20 |
Make a sea of shapes. |
Sabin T |
| 21 |
Combine two (or more) of your pieces from previous days to make a new piece. |
Michael Lowe |
| 22 |
Make something that will look completely different in a year. |
Michael Lowe |
| 23 |
Abstract vegetation. |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 24 |
Create your own pseudo-random number generator and visually check the results. |
Quag |
| 25 |
Perspective. |
Jos Vromans |
| 26 |
Airport carpet. |
Quag |
| 27 |
Palette: #2E294E #541388 #F1E9DA #FFD400 #D90368 |
Michael Lowe |
| 28 |
Self portrait. |
Michael Lowe |
| 29 |
Isometric perspective. |
Chris Ried |
| 30 |
Organic looking output using only rectangular shapes. |
Bart Simons |
| 31 |
Negative space. |
Michael Lowe |
2021
| Day |
Prompt |
Credit |
| 1 |
// TRIPLE NESTED LOOP |
Piter Pasma |
| 2 |
Rule 30 (elementary cellular automaton) |
Harold |
| 3 |
Make something human. |
Sam Corzine |
| 4 |
Small areas of symmetry. |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 5 |
Do some code golf! How little code can you write to make something interesting? |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 6 |
Triangle subdivision. |
Stevan Dedovic |
| 7 |
Generate some rules, then follow them by hand on paper. |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 8 |
Curve only. |
Licia He |
| 9 |
Interference patterns. |
Sam Corzine |
| 10 |
// TREE |
Piter Pasma |
| 11 |
Use something other than a computer as an autonomous process. |
Piter Pasma |
| 12 |
Use an API (e.g. the weather). |
Jonathan Barbeau |
| 13 |
Do not repeat. |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 14 |
// SUBDIVISION |
Piter Pasma |
| 15 |
Let someone else decide the general rules of your piece. |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 16 |
Circles only |
Aaron Penne |
| 17 |
Draw a line, pick a new color, move a bit. |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 18 |
One process grows, another process prunes. |
Piter Pasma |
| 19 |
Increase the randomness along the Y-axis. |
Piter Pasma |
| 20 |
No loops. |
Aaron Penne |
| 21 |
function f(x) { DRAW(x); f(1 * x / 4); f(2 * x / 4); f(3 * x / 4); } |
Harold |
| 22 |
Draw a line. Wrong answers only. |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 23 |
#264653 #2a9d8f #e9c46a #f4a261 #e76f51, no gradients. Optionally, you can use a black or white background. |
Richard Vigniel |
| 24 |
500 lines. |
Aaron Penne |
| 25 |
Make a grid of permutations of something. |
Piter Pasma |
| 26 |
2D Perspective. |
Stevan Dedovic |
| 27 |
Monochrome gradients without lines. |
Aaron Penne |
| 28 |
Use sound. |
Louis-André Labadie |
| 29 |
Any shape, none can touch. |
Aaron Penne |
| 30 |
Replicate a natural concept (e.g. gravity, flocking, path following). |
Jonathan Barbeau |
| 31 |
Search for Eno’s Oblique Strategies and use one as today’s prompt. |
Piter Pasma |