> I spent a fair amount of time with p5 etc, but the results always felt limited and brittle.

I wrote a JS canvas library[1] partly because existing libraries of the time (2013) didn't do what I wanted a canvas library to do. Things like animated gradients and patterns, etc. I'm still working on the library today - so thats 12+ years of my spare time gone!

Generative art - such as challenges like Genuary[2] - is a key tool for giving me ideas on how to develop the library further. I keep CodePens of some of my better efforts[3] around as a set of extra tests to check for breaking changes as I fiddle with the library.

[1] - https://github.com/KaliedaRik/Scrawl-canvas

[2] - https://genuary.art/

[3] - https://codepen.io/collection/RzzMjw