Acrylic - 30" x 20"
JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE
This was a very difficult book to illustrate. The best one can do when confronted by a plethora of ideas, themes, and opinions is to mirror that complexity rather than to choose only one idea and compose a misleading cover.
While reading this book, I thought the cover painting should suggest antique Vatican art, so I chose a color scheme that hinted of age and heavy coats of varnish gone yellow. It occurred to me to add a "crackle" varnish coat and apply gold leaf to the halo, but I decided that both effects wouldn't have made the transition well into print.
A side note: to get the right angle and lighting on the figure's shoes, I had a friend hang from a tree by his hands while I sketched his feet. I had to draw quickly!