New Cover Art For Beneath The Lanterns

 

Blogs are strange things. Basically they’re soap boxes for people who would never think of getting on a soapbox to tell the world all about themselves, what they think, or what they have to sell. I started this blog when I started publishing my stories. It was, and may still be, for all I know, considered an essential element of promoting one’s books. I've my doubts as to it effectiveness in promoting one’s work, since, if you’re preaching to anyone, it's likely the choir --  people who are already interested in your work. But you must have one.

I use mine to publish maps for the ebooks.  I think they’re useless in ebooks, since I find them too awkward to use in that format.. And I write about my books, mainly so that when I become famous, after I die, future biographers will have some original material to work with. This is also why I post my paintings – giving some future grad student working on a thesis about my impressionist art, material to fill out their thesis.

Still, nothing I post in this blog is much of any consequence. Alas, I don't have anything important to say. But what I do have to say, I strive to make it somewhat amusing.

Speaking of the inconsequential, I have painted a new cover for Beneath The Lanterns, as seen above. That last cover really started to bug me. This must be the sixth or seventh potential cover I’ve produced for that book. And, by my count, the fourth since I released it, some two years ago. This time around it is, once again, an actual scene, well, sort of, from the book. It is the street known as the Reed Bank.

Below is the original artwork that I used for the cover.

For almost all of my covers, I enhance my artwork on the computer using Gimp, a free Photoshop alternative, adjusting the colors, and adding the black outlines that sharpen up my rather sketch paintings. For many years before I started publishing my stories painting was the focus of my creative drive – mostly impressionist landscape paintings in the last 17 years, and before that watercolors in a rather folksy style. I have, however, run out of steam when it comes to painting, so that painting covers for my books is work – work I’d like done as fast as possible. Plus, I’m not an illustrator, nor someone who cares, or has the talent for, paying attention to details. Which is to say, I'm not a good cover artist. But I'm cheap. So I settle for impressionistic covers that I hope imparts a sense of mood of the story it is illustrating.

And speaking of covers, I have another one to do for my next book, coming soon. I probably should get it done before my next post on that book. Yuk. By the way, I'm thinking of changing the final title to The Secret of the Tzaritsa Moon. We'll see.