350. THE SHATTERED GODDESS 1 - A black ink and black color pencil drawing on an 11 x 14 size coquille board. It appears in the softcover book, "The Shattered Goddess," by Darrell Schweitzer, published by Donning Books.

Most of the time, when I sat down to plan on how I would illustrate a book, I came up with a picture design that included a complicated border, like the one you see here. The borders would add a lot of time to the project, but I never let "time" be a factor in how I approached a drawing assignment.

My approach to illustration is founded on the principle that my effort should be aimed at satisfying myself. If I liked what I did then I could assume that others would also like it. No guarantee of that, of course.

Although I'm aware that no picture can be "perfect," I had to be convinced that the drawing I just finished was the best I could do at the time. Sometimes, I looked at a finished drawing and sadly thought, "You can do better than that! So, painfully, I discarded the drawing and started over, looking for a new idea to pop up in my mind. And it always did. And I was always pleased with myself that I took the time to do it over and create a picture that satisfied my need to do a good drawing.