Election Cover for NY Observer

This is version that is running on the web edition

On Sunday afternoon, Ed Johnson at the NY Observer wrote with a cover assignment that thrilled and terrified me at the same time. The thrill? Painting the election cover! The terror? They needed to have 3 variations to cover all possible election outcomes (Obama wins, it's a tie when they go to press, and Obama...gulp...loses). So, yeah, the prospect of Romney winning struck terror in my heart. And it was an awful feeling painting a sad Obama face for the Romney Wins version. Awful, awful.

That said, it was nice to spend the last couple of days being so absorbed in the assignment, it kinda kept me from losing my mind with worry over the possibility of living in a country that had elected Romney the president. 

There were a lot of portraits to do for this (happy Obama, sad Obama, sad Romney, happy Romney, not to mention Cory Booker, Chris Christie and Mayor Bloomberg in the background), and only a day to do them all, and I had to take a break to go vote. There's something always so exciting about casting my vote, even after all the times I've voted since I was 18. It reminds me of the feeling I have when I'm in cab going out to LaGuardia airport to catch a flight: something new is in the works!

It took 3 tries to finally cast my ballot. I went over around 8:30 am, but the line was so long and I had a lot of the painting still to do (it was due at the Observer at 5 pm). Tried again at about 11 am...line still too long. Finally it was Mission Accomplished at 2 pm. I have to say I don't like the paper "bubble" form of voting nowadays, reminds me of taking the SATs. Shudder. But the deed was done and I returned to the painting.

Fell out about 9:30 last night, so I didn't know any election results. Got up about 3:30 this morning and found out the good news: Obama won! Tammy Baldwin won! Elizabeth Warren won! Tammy Duckworth won! And a whole bunch of radical right wing anti-woman wankers had lost. And my cover looked nice with a triumphant Obama. It's a good way to wake up.

Here are the other two cover versions. This, below, is the cover of the print edition, showing them both smiling, since the election results weren't yet in at the time of printing so they didn't know who to make sad and who to make happy:

I had a terrible time painting Obama's face in this one, imagining the outcome it illustrated. I am extremely happy it did not run: