All my original designs are manually cut from a single sheet of paper, with a scalpel. Artwork is best displayed on a double glass frame to allow for the shadow work to show. Please note that the fine art prints do NOT show any shadows. In this specific piece, in the prints, you can choose the blue background, or the floating islands.

The idea for this paper cut appeared while I was finishing another one, Hawaiian Humpies, which I made thinking about North Pacific humpback whale migrations from feeding areas in Alaska/ Canada (where I had the pleasure to research them), to reproductive areas in Hawaii.

I thought a ukulele would look super cool with the Hawaiian shirts, representing even more this awesome place/ culture. And that I could make an entirely new design, focusing on it, and via text, talk about humpback whale songs.

Several types of vocalization happen all year round, produced by all individuals, and with different functions (e.g. communication). But the songs happen only at specific periods, and are sung exclusively by male whales, in the mating season.

They are super complex songs, which shift with time in two main ways: evolutions (a little change here and there), and revolutions (where the entire song changes completely, at once). It’s as if a male got sick of song X, and decided to sing Y instead. And other males soon follow suit.

In fact, the same song is shared by all humpback whale populations in the world! The differences we find between places are mostly due to the time the song takes to reach populations, and evolutions along the way. Almost like a “telephone game” =) I find that amazing!

So here we have a young male, playing his ukulele and singing away, looking for love in Hawaiian waters…