Seedlings

The work and its context

Seedlings is project 380 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug seedlings-by-ves3l and credited to VES3L. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 200 of 200 invocations, runtime p5@1.0.0, and the official description: # Seedlings "A young plant, especially one raised from a seed." Each Seedling grows delicately on a windowsill gazing outside. A Seedling's natural environment, whether a grassy prairie, a rocky mountain, or by a river, is but a memory now, leaving a faded imprint on the canvas' outer border. Some Seedlings resemble trees and flowers, others may appear to be geometric abstractions and fractals, yet all feature interplay between filled patterned regions (leaves and petals) and lines of solid color (stems and branches). Other abstractions also make an appearance: circles representing fruits, stars, or the sun and moon; and a gradient sky with foggy clouds beyond the frames of the window. ## Foundation The idea for Seedlings was sown in 2019 and was my first foray into Generative Art. It began as a study of fractal trees where each depth level was individually parametrized (angle of rotation, length, etc.). Initially just a hobbyist project in the pre-Art Blocks era, I returned to Seedlings in 2022 to develop it into the longform series, I believe, that most effectively highlights the underlying algorithm's potential. So, I rewrote Seedlings from scratch, turning its simple monochromatic line renderer into a WebGL shader renderer capable of transforming Bézier curves into abstract stems, branches, leaves, and petals with diverse and colorful palettes. ## Inspiration Having lived much of my life in New York, one of the most urbanized cities in the world, I developed a significant appreciation for green spaces. The city's parks became a refuge from the urban sprawl, where one could touch some grass, breathe fresh air, and pretend they were somewhere else. In an attempt to fill more of my life with green, I placed some plants on my windowsill. The joy they bring my home inspired Seedlings. Over the course of its development, Seedlings collected many stylistic influences, including Hokusai's trees, Charles Demuth's crisscrossing polygonal regions, and Alphonse Mucha's curves. As such, you will find elements of Ukiyo-e and Art Nouveau across the collection. Seedlings also contains stylistic elements found in my other work, such as ink-like outlining and the concept of shape overlap. Additionally, I drew inspiration from contemporary longform Generative Art that aims to create complex emergent behaviors from the interactions of a small set of primitives. The structural patterns that form each Seedling are created purely from the probabilistic placement of their branches and petals. ## Dedication Seedlings has been a labor of love and has particular sentimental value to me as the inception of my Generative Art practice. It feels fitting and very exciting to be given the opportunity to release Seedlings on Art Blocks, the original longform Generative Art platform. Thank you to everyone who helped and supported me during this journey. ¹²

Those figures are current index observations retrieved on 2026-09-19, not a reconstruction of the original public sale announcement. Atlas position is a catalogue ordinal and is not the on-chain project ID. The live collection page and the Hasura projects_metadata row agree on title, slug, contract, and project ID after a filtered query that used the exact slug. ¹²

Contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069. Aspect ratio indexed as 1.0. Website https://www.ves3l.com/collections/seedlings.

This essay treats the stored artist program, four independently identified outputs, and a freshly checked AB5D holding (or an explicit collection gap) as primary evidence. Metadata traits are cited only when they were returned for the same V2 contract token IDs that were visually inspected. They do not replace looking at the pictures. ³⁴

Conception and development

The official project description is the development account used here. Interview or dossier sentences that name a different slug are not treated as statements about this series. # Seedlings "A young plant, especially one raised from a seed." Each Seedling grows delicately on a windowsill gazing outside. A Seedling's natural environment, whether a grassy prairie, a rocky mountain, or by a river, is but a memory now, leaving a faded imprint on the canvas' outer border. Some Seedlings resemble trees and flowers, others may appear to be geometric abstractions and fractals,

The development account used here is the specific source named in the citations, not a paraphrase of an artist-dossier page. Where that account is an official project description written in the artist's voice, that limit is stated rather than upgraded into an unpublished studio diary. Where an interview exists, the sentences that actually name Seedlings are the ones relied on. ⁵¹

Secondary pages that only repeat the marketplace listing are not treated as independent conception sources. ²⁵

How the work was constructed

The complete artist program for slug seedlings-by-ves3l was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 45242 bytes with SHA-256 47810baefaacd4c32b12ae9124e911557901f41f8e33ac32e7e61c8ef43e55b6. Runtime on the project record is p5@1.0.0. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. ⁶

The stored generator is 45242 bytes, SHA-256 47810baefaacd4c32b12ae9124e911557901f41f8e33ac32e7e61c8ef43e55b6, runtime p5@1.0.0. Detected source markers: setup, draw, noLoop, WEBGL, createCanvas, keyPressed, tokenData, hash, colorMode. Named functions include f, p, u. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 139,104,102). File size 8700161 bytes. Indexed features: Age Growing; Origin Mountain; Diamond False; Palette Strawberry; Stem Curves 2; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 0.5

Visual claims come from inspected media-proxy PNGs plus indexed token features.

Seed handling is visible in the retrieved program: tokenData.hash is read in source. Time and interaction behaviour in code is: Source contains noLoop. The inspected PNG is a finished still. Live motion was not stopwatched. A handler found in source is not the same thing as a control that was pressed in a live renderer during this session; tested controls are listed only when an actual key or pointer action was performed. ⁶⁷

External dependencies are those declared by script_type_and_version plus any library identifiers inside the file. Public visibility of the stored script does not grant a right to redistribute the raw artist source in this package, so the analysis cites functions and byte length rather than reprinting the program. ⁶⁸

The mint

Indexed chronology for project 380 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-10-28T19:42:59+00:00. activated_at is 2022-11-03T02:09:59+00:00. start_datetime is 2022-11-21T18:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2022-11-21T18:25:23+00:00. Invocations stand at 200 of a maximum 200, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 5.27 days; activation to start_datetime is 18.66 days; start_datetime to completion is 25.4 minutes; first mint to completion is 23.95 days. These are differences of indexed clock fields, not a claim about when a web storefront button became visible to every collector. A first mint that precedes start_datetime is treated as an early or reserved mint unless a separate allocation record is produced. ²³

Indexed clocks: first 2022-10-28T19:42:59+00:00, activated 2022-11-03T02:09:59+00:00, start 2022-11-21T18:00:00+00:00, completed 2022-11-21T18:25:23+00:00. Early first-mint timestamps are not labelled reserved without a separate allocation record.

Historic per-token ETH prices for the original public sale were not recovered from a primary price table during this session and remain unresolved. Any floor price visible on a marketplace page in 2026 is a current listing observation, not the 2021 ask. ¹²

Copyright and licensing

The project record stores the artwork licence label 'CC BY-NC 4.0'. That string includes an explicit 4.0 version and is treated as Creative Commons version 4.0. Code rights for the artist program are not separately labelled on the same field; they are treated as unknown rather than assumed identical to the artwork deed. ²⁸

Artwork label copied exactly as 'CC BY-NC 4.0'.

Third-party runtime p5@1.0.0 is a separate rights object from both the artwork outputs and the artist source. p5.js, three.js, and ordinary browser JavaScript each keep their own licence texts. This package does not redistribute those libraries. ⁶⁸

Original essay prose in this package is dedicated CC0-1.0 by the research operator. That dedication does not change the artwork, code, or dependency licences.

Close reading of examples

Seedlings #0 is token 380000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-10-28T19:42:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 139,104,102). File size 8700161 bytes. Indexed features: Age Growing; Origin Mountain; Diamond False; Palette Strawberry; Stem Curves 2; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 0.5 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Age Growing; Origin Mountain; Diamond False; Palette Strawberry; Stem Curves 2; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 0.5. ³⁹⁴

Seedlings #1 is token 380000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-11-21T18:01:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 174,119,110). File size 9450924 bytes. Indexed features: Age Developed; Origin Urban Overgrown; Diamond False; Palette Strawberry; Stem Curves 2; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 1 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Age Developed; Origin Urban Overgrown; Diamond False; Palette Strawberry; Stem Curves 2; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 1. ³⁹⁴

Seedlings #10 is token 380000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-11-21T18:24:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 179,121,86). File size 8227075 bytes. Indexed features: Age Developed; Origin Urban Overgrown; Diamond False; Palette Dragon Fruit; Stem Curves 3; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 1 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Age Developed; Origin Urban Overgrown; Diamond False; Palette Dragon Fruit; Stem Curves 3; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 1. ³⁹⁴

Seedlings #20 is token 380000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-11-21T18:24:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 183,183,98). File size 8941418 bytes. Indexed features: Age Developed; Origin Mountain; Diamond False; Palette Lemon; Stem Curves 3; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 1 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Age Developed; Origin Mountain; Diamond False; Palette Lemon; Stem Curves 3; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Fit; Stem Curvature 1. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 380000080 (edition 80), currently indexed to 0xdd19308a9731cdecb67e0d80ca6823394208c045, which is one of the three linked addresses returned for username ab5d on 2026-09-19. That ownership match is a present-tense index observation, not proof of continuous custody since mint. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 196,157,148). File size 10677064 bytes. Indexed features: Age Developed; Origin Beach; Diamond False; Palette Cucumber; Stem Curves 2; Constant Tree False; Window Margin Thin; Stem Curvature 1 ¹⁰³⁴

Motion, interaction, and audio: Source contains noLoop. The inspected PNG is a finished still. Live motion was not stopwatched. The static PNGs document halt or preview states. They are not by themselves proof that a live loop is still running, nor proof that a work is silent. No soundtrack was heard from these pages during this session. ⁴⁷⁶

Significance and limitations

Seedlings is project 380 by VES3L on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069. The close readings above are the evidence for what the stored program outputs.

Unresolved research questions that remain after this pass: (1) What was the exact public-sale unit price in ETH at start_datetime, supported by a contemporaneous primary source rather than a later floor? (2) For tokens whose live renderer was not stopwatch-timed, what is the measured wall-clock period of one full cycle or one completed progressive draw? (3) What contemporaneous primary source records the original public unit price in ETH? (4) Incomplete Control aside, do any of the three current AB5D wallets later acquire or dispose of the header token used above after 2026-09-19? ²¹⁰⁷

This package is a draft for human review. Structural validation tests file shape, not the truth of seeing or of licence interpretation.