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Just a quick pencil and wash sketch of His Excellency on his birthday. A new and very nice review of Anne Rockwell's Big George can be found at the All-en-A-Day's Work Blog.

Hey teachers! Going to the NCTE and/or ALAN convention in Philadelphia this weekend? Me too. Here's my schedule:

On Saturday February 28th at 2 pm, I'll be at Head House Books in Philadelphia talking about and signing copies of Big George. It's my first event at this great little indie store. If you're in the area, stop by and say howdy.

Above is the sketch of Washington's crossing of the Delaware from the book dummy. My wise editor and art director at Harcourt pointed out that it would be better for the final illustration to have the action going from left to right instead, leading the eye to the page turn. A simple change, but very important.

For a detailed look at the long and twisty road to publication for Big George, check out author Anne Rockwell's blog.

Big George paintings in progress as I start to lose the elusive winter sun (December 2007).

There's a nice review of George in the new edition of Publishers Weekly. Anne Rockwell's evocative text inspired me to read more about the life of Washington in preparation for that book. The two books that helped me get a sense of the man most were His Excellency by Joseph L. Ellis and 1776 by David McCullough. I highly recommend both. I also listened to the audio version of 1776 while painting Big George. There's just something about the sound of David McCullough's voice. He could make the phone book captivating.

A color study for the country dance in Big George.

I'm just wrapping up work on Big George which has occupied most of my waking moments for the past month or so. As I shake off the 18th century (and prepare to enter the early 20th century, where I'll be for the first half of this year), I thought I'd try to get some regular posting in.

To make up for my lack of posting recently, I'm planning on adding new monthly features to the blog beginning...soon.

Rebecca OUP-US

Homer Simpson had a point, “you don’t make friends with salad,” especially on the 4th of July. A good party requires a good barbeque and Andrew Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, is here to test your knowledge. Think you are the king of all grill masters? See how many of the following questions you can get right. The answers are at the end.

1. The word barbecue likely originated in: (more…)

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