This one of the variations that I prepared for a series. In retrospect, I may want to revisit these in the future. For now, as part of this transition story, the key element is less density.

Back to the past. A little after Transition #16 I came up with this one. It felt like a big step in the right direction, although it is hard to say exactly why. The colors are better. There are a lot of details, and they are supported by the overall composition.

I thought I would build a series around this. After a few failed attempts to create follow up pieces, I gave up. They were either too similar, or they lacked whatever it was that made me attached to this piece.

I liked the texture in the white/gray areas. I made some pieces to emphasize that feature. They were interesting enough, but not what I was going after. I will return to those later.

Tomorrow I will talk about another path I took from here.

Here is a newly created, very loose, variation of Transition #16. I liked how the intersection and overlay of multiple sawtooth patterns created unexpected shapes in places. It is a bit of an illusion in the original. Those shapes seem interesting because they are small, they lack detail, so the brain fills in the details. Anyway, it was difficult to create this effect on a larger scale. There are a lot of overlays here, with differing degrees of distortion and small shade variations.

Anyway, I am quite pleased with the result, this could be a starting point for a new series.

Along the way I shifted from the tiling to jagged sawtooth lines. This seems to have potential, but it also did not go anywhere. Either too uniform, or too mixed.

If you look closely you can see areas with the sawtooth edges organically become other more complex shapes.

Brighter with more browns. I like where this is going. I set these aside to be the starting point for a new future series.

The other path mentioned yesterday led here. Fewer colors and subtle shades. I am able to keep my jaggies, but they are not the foreground.

The colors and shapes suggest some deep sea turbulence.

I forked two paths from the previous. Here is an example of one path, fewer lines, less collisions. I felt it was getting better. I tried several other variations, but I could not get the jagged lines to work as the main, foreground, feature.

I did eventually come back to this one.

I set yesterday's minimalist piece aside and headed in the opposite direction. Instead I wanted to emphasize jagged lines with sharp corners.

With a whole lot of discipline, I greatly reduced the complexity. This one is good. A totally difference mood, not what I was looking for. But good enough that I may recall it and publish it in another setting in the future.

Now almost 50/50 between the wavy parts and the quiet parts. Still too much going on.

More colors, but the colors are not heavily mixed, just two at a time. I like the wavy flow, but it is not enough to carry the whole piece. The tame area in the lower left is not enough. Either it should be left out or cover about half the piece.

And now, back to the story…

Following the approximate chronological order, today's image shows another path I followed after Transition #2.

Still too busy, and the wrong colors.

Yesterday's comments apply here as well. This one is a keeper, I will work it into a future series.

I wonder if I can sort out time here, just as a compulsion to be accurate. There are three "times" involved, when I create the art, when I write these words and when I publish the post. I created the first four items in this series some months ago. I only recently decided to dust them off and write about them. I hope to publish these words a week or two after I am writing them.

This one and the next one I created just a few days ago. I was about to write that I gave up and went down another path. I did, and I will get to that soon. But saying that I gave up became a challenge. Did I give up too soon? Was I just in a rut? Am I feeling more, or differently, creative now?

The next two are loose variations of the first one. Some of the same colors, similar, but much fewer and larger, shapes. I am putting them here because they are related to the discussion. But they really belong in an "official" series. I hope to create such a series in the future. For now, I am including them with the "rejects" to provide some contrast.

Again, larger and fewer shapes. Better than the starting point, but still not good enough.

In the previous two posts, the tiling was too small, too many little squares, and too obvious. Here the 'tiles' (can't really call them that now) have a range of sizes, generally much larger. They have a range of skew, squares, rectangles, thin lines. There is a lot of intersection and overlap, nothing is hanging is space.

I did not think this one was ready, but it was headed in the right direction. Now that I am taking a second look, I like it better.

In the previous series, Bright Zone II, I said it was different from Bright Zone. The two sets have similar colors but II has slightly fuzzy edges and there is a hint of tiling in the otherwise smooth color regions.

The tiling is something that I lay down, then cover up, it is de-emphasized. The fuzziness is the result of mixing two colors (one of which is usually black) at the pixel level. Each pixel is one color or the other, as opposed to a sharp separation or blending colors between areas. The somewhat buried tiling creates a jagged boundary. This is hidden by the pixel mixing described above. The jagged edges became more apparent as I remove or decreased the fuzziness.

As I thought about these differences, I began to plan ahead for a future series that would emphasize these features, the tiling and jagged edges.

Yesterday and today's feature images brings the square tiling to the forefront. Obviously if the whole image only had uniform tiles it would be boring. I added different region and tiles with various orientation and skews. Still it is too busy and needs to be dialed back.

When I finished Today's image, I decided the composition and colors were way off. There may be hope with fewer, more subdued colors to bring out the flow in the top. The less busy areas in the bottom, create a different mood, worth exploring separately. But mixing the two here just does not work.

The Transition Series is about the transition from what was before to what is next. It is not a cohesive set, but I thought I would do it anyway.

I like putting together sets of loosely related items, rather than publishing a bunch of one-offs. The last time I rewrote the web page software, almost six years ago, I switched the emphasis to sets of related images.

Sometimes, while I am working on a theme, it may bifurcate. I discover two or more subgroups in the planned theme and then split it. Focus is on one subset now, and the other is set aside for later.

When I get stuck, I may create some random unrelated things as a kind of reset. Then I can come back with a fresh perspective. I may like those interim experiments enough to publish as-is, or use as a base to develop further. But they do not fit with the current theme, so either way it becomes backlog.

There is always backlog, in various stages of development and completeness. Right now, that backlog is bigger than usual. Sorting though it has been slow. Mainly because I keep changing my mind on what features to isolate and use to define a theme. So now, while I am trying to figure out and prepare the next real series, I will blog about the process.

Normally I do not talk about these behind-the-scenes things. I experiment, hide the failures, publish the good ones. This time, and probably the only time, I will show some of that process. Please let me know if this is at all interesting.

Today's image is one of those experiments. More tomorrow.

Series introduction: Bright Zone II #1
Parent series introduction: Strange Zone II #1
Related series: Strange Zone II #4