I've been having almost too much fun working on a new book for Sterling Publishing.  The title of the book is 'The 12 Days of Christmas in Washington', a very fun travel book.  The joy of this new approach to artwork has been to explore the possibilities of merging real paint and digital paints.  My new Mac Pro has been key in this project, since the amount of computing required was beyond my previous machine.  Digital art is challenging... it makes an artist think in new ways. The writing was challenging but fun.  I had to create a puzzle where all the elements fit into a storyline that takes the reader on a trip around Washington state.  It was much more challenging than I originally thought. Doing the digital art was challenging as well.  As it felt like I was creating color depths that I'd never been able to capture with just acrylic paints. Digital art can be novel, at least it is for me. There are things that which become possible which I've never been able to do with real paints.  Digital art is problem solving... it requires new learning curves and improvising new solutions. The discovery of various paint brushes and pioneering a new technique has been wonderful.  I can control every aspect of the image... the line color, the texture, the color, shading and surface texture.  Just as when working with real paints, the issues of defining borders and establishing color areas is where difficulties often arise.  Digital art is amazing, at least it is for me. If I'm really lucky it sometimes almost seems like it's painting itself. Digital art is only as good as the artist who dreams it up though. The same basic rules of composition, proportion and artistic discretion apply.  Digital art is fun! Artists do like to have fun. Digital art can be addictive... especially when coloring in the afternoon and listening to Ravel simultaneously.