"This cover for a story on the influx of new types of pears called for a simple rendering of Asian pears and I jumped on the opportunity. Nothing satisfies a hankering to render more than spherical objects casting shadows. Seventeenth-century Dutch still-lifes always blow me away. I love their sense of light and shadow and the tightly-rendered detail. Bearing them in mind, I made the background dark and painted every spot on every pear."
