Musings of Two Creative Minds

When it came time to work on the cover for "The Vampyre Blogs - I: Coming Home" I was finding myself coming up against a wall as far as cover art ideas went.  The other books had been relatively easy because of their two word titles: "The Bridge" and "The Ship". But this time the title was much longer, so I needed to come up with something different. Since we were using the word 'blogs' as part of the title, I thought about incorporating a computer or laptop into the picture.  So I experimented with Adobe Photoshop and came up with this image: While very effective in many respects, some people told me they missed seeing my original artwork on the cover. Many said it helped make our books stand out more.  So I began wracking my brains for a a new cover style and wasn't coming up with much. Mind you, at this point we had not even started writing the novel and decided not to worry about it.  I figured once the story was written I'...

Today I was in one of my moods regarding creativity and decided to share another side of myself.  As many of you know,  I not only write, but I'm also an artist who specializes in soft pastels and charcoal.  I know I've shown some of my book covers, but today I felt like sharing some of the other works I've come up with over the years. This first piece is a soft pastel which was inspired by a song by Nina Gordon, "Tonight and the rest of my Life".  Her we have an angelic figure who holds a universe in her arms and behind her you can make out large fingers which in turn cradle her. This piece was coming along beautifully until it came time to do the face.  I couldn't find the right one to use, or get the angles right.  Then my wife stepped in and posed her head just right, and from then on the painting seemed to come alive.  It held even more meaning than before to me as I retouched areas and strove to finish it with great love and affection, f...