I can’t help it, I just like alliteration. Really, this is more of a painting today, but that starts with a P.

Yesterday I posted the beginnings of a dragon drawing which was to be the central medallion of a book cover, one of a series by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. The designs are all similar, with a kind of heraldic feel to them, but need to be different enough in colour and subject that readers can tell the books apart. Nothing like going to the bookstore (or online in this case) and scratching your head trying to remember if you already bought that volume of the series or not because it looks so much like all the others!

I’m gradually being seduced by the wonders of Photoshop, as I get more comfortable with it. I’m still using it in a very simple fashion (if you can call using a machine that none of us could have imagined a few short decades ago simple), but it’s just so darn much fun! And the colours look so pretty on the screen with the light coming through them.

But really, it’s not that much different than doing paintings by hand. I’m still doing the drawing part in pen and ink, though I could do them on a digital drawing tablet too, and may soon. When I add the colours, I’m choosing them based on my knowledge of what works from years of experience; I’m not indecisive about colour schemes, though of course I could easily try out lots of different ones if I were. I choose the tools according to what effects I want, just as I would choose a physical brush or a pen or a pencil. It’s a huge amount of stuff to learn, but I’m starting to get the hang of it, and of course enjoying it more as I do. I don’t think I’ll ever give up my traditional materials, but someday when I’m old(er) and my brush wobbles, you may find me more often at the computer, pushing pixels around instead of paint!

Anyway, without, further ado and ramblings, here is the new cover for “The Christening Quest”. The dragon’s name, by the way, is Grippeldice.

“The Christening Quest” — cover for a novel by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. Check out her page at Gypsy Shadow Publishing Company, and head on over to her Facebook Page, where you can also see some of the fabulous beadwork she does.