Acrylics, gold watercolor on board, 9/87, 26 x 31 inches, signed on middle left column. The editors at DAW Books chose me to do the covers for a new author of theirs when I showed them that I could paint horses. That is how I received the assignment of doing the covers for Mercedes Lackey, and this is the cover art for the second book of her inaugural series on the Heralds and Companions of Valdemar. I was living in New York at this time and the Museum of Modern Art had recently put on the most amazing show, Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture & Design. My cover design was influenced by my admiration of Klimt and others in the show. I was living in the General Theological Seminary with friends, and I found a young model there among the students for Talia. In the oddest of coincidences, my Talia ended up looking a lot like the author herself.
