451 Series: Greg’s Amazing Landscapes limited edition

You won’t find gold-plated knockoffs or fake gemstones in the best jewelry shops—only carefully crafted, one-of-a-kind pieces. That’s the idea behind this small batch of NFTs. Inspired by traditional printmaking but made for the digital world, each one is unique.

The sequential 1/10, 2/10, 3/10 system denoting rarity didn’t sit well with me for this collection. In printmaking, it makes sense—over time, blocks wear down, and later prints lose detail. The first impression is usually the sharpest and most valuable. But NFTs don’t degrade. They exist on the blockchain, untouched by time.

Still, many collectors assign extra value to NFTs based on their minting order. Owning the first-minted piece (1/10) is seen as more prestigious, even though it’s identical in quality to the rest. For the corporeal world that tradition is fine, but for NFTs it seemed to fall short. The digital world offers infinite identical copies—but it also offers infinite variety.

I replaced the standard numbering system with the ROYGBIV spectrum—Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet—each representing a distinct rarity level. I needed at least 11 levels (ten editions plus the ultra-rare Masters). I turned to art theory and added Black and White.

In color theory, Black and White aren’t colors but Values, representing the presence or absence of light. These form Levels 10 and 9 in the hierarchy. All “10s” have black borders—41 NFTs in total.

White, the next tier, includes two forms: “Raw Canvas” and “Primed Canvas,” effectively dividing the level into two variants and making each white NFT twice as rare as black.

The Red level follows, comprised of three different reds. Each red is thus approximately one-third as common as black, and the diversity continues to increase up the spectrum. This tiered structure links rarity to both visual identity and artistic theory, creating a layered and meaningful system.

This brought me up to nine levels. But then I ran into a problem: I was sourcing my colors from manufacturers I use like Gamblin, Graham,
Holbein, and Winsor & Newton. It turns out these companies didn’t produce many Indigos and Violets, or at least not enough for my
purposes, so I had to combine both into a single level, Purple. Now I had only eight levels.

I added another level of earth tones—natural, muted hues often created by mixing complementary colors or adding black to primaries and secondaries. These deep, grounded shades form what I call the Perceptual Hues—colors rooted in material reality and human experience, rather than pure spectral light.

I connected the idea of light with metal, the elements that empower us to control light. Take the James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror for instance. It is made of 18 hexagonal segments coated with a gold layer only 100 nanometers thick. This almost magically thin layer now provides humanity with the sharpest and furthest reaching images of creation ever taken. Metal works in unexpected, transformative ways. Like the finery in a jewel it bends, deflects and captures light. Metal became level 1.

In printmaking—whether it’s a Giclée or a woodblock print—artists experiment with different inks and adjustments along the way. Sometimes, they end up liking a test print even more than the final edition. These special pieces, called Artist Proofs, are often more valued than the rest of the run. In the digital world, where everything can be perfectly controlled, that idea doesn’t translate exactly. The closest thing is the so-called Master—the original from which all others come.

Light and metal led me to Level Zero and more math. Here, things got interesting: with Perceptual Hues and Metals already at levels 9.5% rarity, I knew I couldn’t lump the Masters into just another group of 41. The group had to be split—at least two categories were needed to create the rarity the masters reflect. I thought of other materials like wood or stone, but they had nothing to do with light or art theory—they felt forced.

The Masters needed to be pristine, untouched, unadorned. And then the answer hit me—use the entire spectrum of light: those above the visible spectrum, like UV, X-rays, and gamma rays, as well as those below, such as infrared, RF, and ELF. The connection between light and metal continued. After all, copper-based sensors help us measure Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) magnetic fields, and the humble lead apron at the dentist's office blocks X-rays.

Where else but in fiction and lore can you have a picture with a border that radiates radio frequencies or gamma rays? It's in the same dimension that provides the scene of Buddy Holly, inflight, staring out of a stormy window of the Beechcraft Bonanza, wondering what he'd really won with that coin toss. Or the tired scientist, who, after an accidental overdose of gamma radiation, transforms into the Hulk when angered. These stories exist only in the realm of imagination—or the 2D world. In this space, art and reality merge, generating something unique that simply can’t exist anywhere else.

In my NFTs, this invisible border is a quiet, yet powerful feature. It's not marked, yet it’s always there—an element that sets each piece apart by the presence of absence. This border doesn't exist in the traditional sense. It cannot be seen. Instead, it defines the space where art moves beyond its surface, subtly interacting with the viewer. Like the unseen layer of light that gives metal its warmth in sunshine, the invisible border adds a dimension that’s felt rather than seen.

A Guide to the Eight Traits

Painting Style

Oil or Water Color

Season

Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall

Issue Order

In line with the printmaking theme, the "Issue Order" indicates the theoretical sequence in which each NFT was "printed" within the entire series, rather than among the individual 41 editions. This serves primarily as a technical function and clerical aid rather than a marker of rarity, especially since each NFT possesses the same 0.22% attribute. It's important to note that all NFTs were technically minted simultaneously.

Artwork Within Edition

This is the sequential rarity of each edition as made from the Master: 1/10, 2/10, 2/10, 4/10. etc..

Aspect

Landscape or Portrait

Border Codex

The Border Codex tells us one of two things (1) where the border's radiant border matrix is is found within the entire spectrum of known light, or (2) whether it is part of the Meta-Light Forge — the manipulator of light itself.

Value

In art, black and white are not considered colors but rather values indicating the presence or absence of light. Black and White.

Black: Originally I wanted the black border to be comprised of two blacks very familiar to me: Ivory and Mars black. However, once scanned, digitally the difference between the two appeared indistinguishable. So in the end I went with simply solid black #000000.

White (Raw Canvas, Primed Canvas): White presented similar problems with flake white, titanium white and zinc white. It is from this that I came upon the idea of the raw and primed canvases representing two separate whites.

Primary Spectral Triad

We all know that to make the color green we mix blue and yellow. But this is not the case concerning light. Green has its own wavelength distinct just as much as red yellow blue. So here the primary spectral triad is a nod to the painter's primary colors, red, yellow and blue - three colors that cannot be mixed from any other colors.

Additive Hues

Chartreuse sits uniquely in both the physics of light and the painter’s palette. In the visible spectrum, it appears between green and yellow, primarily stimulating the green photoreceptors in the human eye. For painters, it’s typically created by mixing yellow with a small amount of blue, yielding a bright, yellow-green hue. In this sense, chartreuse is a product of addition in both systems—through light stimulation or pigment blending.

While colors like orange, green, and purple are often referred to as secondary colors in pigment theory, their status as "Additive Hues" here emphasizes their origin through combination.

Interestingly, purple defies the physics of light—there is no wavelength corresponding to purple, and no “purple” photons. Instead, it's a construct of the human brain, piecing together simultaneous input from red and blue photoreceptors. No two people see purple in exactly the same way; it’s a perceptual illusion—a beautiful glitch in our visual processing.

Perceptual Hues

Appropriately earth tones occupy a grounded place among the Perceptual Hues—colors we associate deeply with nature and material reality. In pigment mixing, blending red and green often yields brown, a muted composite that underlies many traditional earth pigments like burnt umber, raw sienna, ochre, and terra rosa.

Meta-Light Forge

A category of light phenomena describing the interaction of electromagnetic waves, particularly with metals, of materials that exhibit (1) reflective behaviors (silver and gold reflecting visible light), (2) absorptive behavior (whereas iron or steal show up on xrays, lead blocks xrays altogether), (3) transformative interactions (metal metamaterials manipulating light through engineered nanostructures).

Hyper Light

Light that is above the visible white spectrum.

UVA (Ultraviolet A): UVA rays are emitted by the sun and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere, contributing to tanning and aging of the skin.

UVB (Ultraviolet B): UVB rays from the sun cause sunburn — damaging the DNA in skin cells.

UVC (Ultraviolet C): UVC rays are produced by the sun but are absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, preventing them from reaching the surface.

S-XR (Soft X-Rays): Soft X-rays are emitted by the sun during solar flares, though most are absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere.

H-XR (Hard X-Rays): Hard X-rays are produced by cosmic events such as supernovae, though Earth's atmosphere absorbs most of this radiation.

GRs (Gamma Rays): Gamma rays are emitted by radioactive decay of atomic nuclei in elements like uranium and thorium found in Earth's crust.

Under-Light

Light that is below the visible white spectrum

NIR (Near-Infrared): The warmth you feel when standing in sunlight is partly due to NIR radiation emitted by the sun.

MIR (Mid-Infrared): The heat emitted by a cup of hot coffee, which you can sense when holding the cup, is primarily in the MIR spectrum.

FIR (Far-Infrared): The thermal radiation emitted by Earth as it cools down at night predominantly falls within the FIR range.

ELF (Extremely Low Frequency): The electromagnetic waves generated by lightning strikes, which can penetrate deep into the Earth, are in the ELF range.

RF (Radio Frequency): The natural electromagnetic emissions from astronomical objects, such as pulsars and galaxies, are detected in the RF spectrum.

Radiant Border Matrix

The Radiant Border Matrix tells us precisely what color, what light or manipulator comprise the border of each unique NFT.