Folks have been asking about the first “The Science of Loving” cover and why I changed it then returned to it. So it’s like this: I loved most of the original illustration. I spent forever getting the tattoo designed just right.

But days started turning into weeks of digital painting. Writing and editing chores weren’t getting done, and time was breathing down my neck.

Leonardo Da Vinci once said (well, he could have said it more than once for all I know,) “Art is never finished, merely abandoned.” So, taking that philosophical approach, I decided a few shortcuts were in order otherwise I’d never publish. In other words, cheat. Smudge up the spots that weren’t quite right (the smudging around her head was part of the original design concept to fade into the shadows,) and make the less finished areas blurry (not the brightest ideas…)

But every time I looked at the cover, those mistakes were all I could see, and it felt like the world was seeing them too. So continuing down the slippery slope of less than stellar decisions, I decided to do a quick cover update using Amazons cover designer. And  God awful  cover 2 was born (and no I’m not posting it again. The first time was bad enough. It’s still in my earlier posts… Consider yourselves warned.)

Unfortunately, when all that cringing threw out my back, I felt I owed it to back owning readers everywhere to fix the problem. So, going back to the earlier illustration, I did my best to clean up it up (though it’s still not perfect,) and returned to my original (but slightly more polished) design.