Well the final hours of 2008 are ticking away, so in celebration of the pending calendar turnover to 2009 I have uploaded my 2009 Year of Astronomy design in wallpaper format free for download in various sizes for your monitor and iPhone/iPod. Here are the links:

● 1920 x 1200
● 1680 x 1050
● 1440 x 900
● 1280 x 1024
● 1280 x 800
● 1024 x 768
● iPhone or iPod

So once again from Signalnoise, have a safe and happy New Year!

2009 is the Year of Astronomy, which sounds very promising for us and the universe :)

The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) will be a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture, highlighted by the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo Galilei.

See more information on the International Year of Astronomy 2009, and Happy New Year from Signalnoise!

Sidenote: The trees used in the image was a photo I snapped from the patio of my parents’ house earlier today. They have the best woods ever.

If you somehow missed picking up issue #156 of Computer Arts magazine, which contains my tutorial entitled Creating the New Retro, it is now available as a PDF download from the Computer Arts website. You can check it out right here:

Creating the new Retro: Tutorial by James White

Many people have contacted me regarding when this tutorial would be available online, however I strongly recommend picking up the issue if you have the means. Lots of great stuff in there.

Because the holidays are just around the corner, things will be slowing down next week on the blog as I travel home to visit the family for some seasonal relaxing full of egg nog and mom’s homecooking. My computer time will be limited, and there will be a slight delay in shipping out poster orders I receive from the 21st to the 28th.

2008 has been a great year here at Signalnoise, and I’m very happy to have met and worked with so many great and talented artists from all over the world.

So to you and yours, have a safe and happy holiday from Signalnoise!

I’m very much enjoying the experimental photography of Alan Jaras. Alan photographs light refractions through various plastic and glass objects, capturing completely random arrays of light and color. In his own words:

“These are analogue images of the refraction patterns of a beam of light passing through various transparent objects (in this case a piece of textured glass). The image is captured directly on to 35mm film, no camera lens is used ( this is a photogram using film instead of photographic paper), the transparent object replaces the lens. Colour is introduced by placing specially prepared coloured filters directly in the light beam. This is an analogue image and has not been computer generated or colour treated. The colours you see are a faithful reproduction of those captured on film.”

An extraordinary way of creating these amazing pieces. Check out more of Alan’s work on his extensive Flickr stream.