Hemisphere Boreal and some notes on the ghosts of bad art past

Look! I made a print! It's a nice one too, I think. It's available for sale here. It's a big 18x24 3-color print on 140lb black Speckletone French Paper (ooh la la!) and it GLOWS IN THE FREAKING DARK. It contains 32 labeled constellations, 4 phases of the moon, some constellation lore and a bunch of other details. It's in a limited edition of 100, signed and numbered. When they're gone, they're gone. This thing is quite thick and substantial-feeling, too. If you bought 5 or 6 of them, i do think you could construct a sturdy little house out of them. Proceeds from this will mainly be going to getting set up to make loads more prints regularly. The plan is to do giclee prints on a regular basis and big scary screenprints every couple of months. You can help make this happen!


Earlier this year I did a music video (which hasn't been released yet, but you'll definitely dig it when it is). The video involved a constellation as a central element, and it got me wanting to draw some more. When I was young, I used to get boxes of old National Geographics from garage sales. One of them had this big fold-out star chart that glowed in the dark. I loved mythology and would stay up reading about constellations and the myths behind them in our Collier's Encyclopedias. It was so cool to look up into the sky and see the same things people saw there millennia ago, and read the ways they made sense of them.

As a side note, I think my greatest achievement as a child was reading our entire series of encyclopedias front to back between 2nd grade and 5th grade. It's one of those things you can't boast about without sounding like a self-satisfied jerk, but seriously, I think you should have some bragging rights for such a feat. Other kids were all-county in track, or won a spelling bee, or actually did homework. I sat in my room and read the encyclopedias. I remember one of the yearly supplementals (88 0r 89) had this big awesome section on bats for some reason. That was great. I did an extra credit report on bats to make up for the homework I didn't do.

Anyway, my fond remembrance of those olden times and my evergreen love of cool semi-educational stuff lead me to want to do a star chart of my own.


I drew it in early April, right after completing the aforementioned unreleased music video. I used a large amount of resources for visual reference and read much more about the stars and the constellations themselves than I ever had before. The whole design took a couple of weeks to get through, partly on account of the work I was doing for Riverlife at the time.

As mentioned earlier, like all good star charts this one glows in the dark. The designs are different in the dark - the moons have faces, Hercules is wearing the head of the lion, and so on. The glow in the dark looks like faded grey in normal light, but when charged this thing really shines in the dark.


In making this, I also learned how to photograph glow in the dark stuff. I am ashamed at how long it took me to get it looking good.

Anyway, this the first print in what is hopefully a long series. I have a lot of ideas I'd love to do! Stay tuned. In the meantime, if so moved, go and grab one for yourself. Bethany, Ico and I would very much appreciate it.

Bethany not included with purchase.

Oh, and the print was hand-screened by my friends at Commonwealth Press. More on that specific process soon, but for now let me say this: they are just fantastic. I've known those guys for years, have worked with them a few times and will continue going back until they grow tired of me. If you are ever in need of some expert print-makers, do make it Commonwealth Press.

Note: I used to sell prints at my Etsy shop in 2006, and 2008. If you were ever interested in how my art has evolved over the years (ie:how awful I was 5 years ago), looking at past sales there is as good a way as any. I had only really started doing a digital art in 2004, and I really had no idea what the hell I was doing. I was a late entrant into this whole world. You younger guys and gals who are reading this - you've got time.

WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS THIS?

I think I'm making some statement here. I'm not sure.

I suppose I didn't really come into a style of my own that I was happy with until 2009 sometime. I spend about 5 years trying to draw like other people. That's a long time. It makes me happy/wary that the things I make now may seem to me in 2016 as things I made in 2006 do to me now. That was a confusing sentence. There was one print from 2008 that I still dig and would like to rework.

We'll see...