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Making the ‘ROSA’ Art: Colors

March 26, 2024

Another ‘Behind-the-scenes’ peak into the art-making process for ‘What Rosa Brought’, and one of my favorite stages of book design – creating the color palette. I could spend a year painting nothing but color swatches!  The first step to inspiring the colors was to draw from historic photos, 1930’s art, photos of Vienna, and other book artists color palettes that I loved (shown: Felicita Sala, Janet Hill, Laura Carlin). I start…

Making the ‘ROSA’ Art: Character Design

March 14, 2024

Some ‘Behind-the-scenes’ art-making for ‘What Rosa Brought’ (releasing in UK bookstores March 2024)… In the earliest stages of making art for books I tend to focus on characters first (especially in the case of non-fiction books). Rosa is based on author Jacob Sager Weinstein’s mother as a child, and her parents and grandma are 3 other key characters in the book. Jacob shared these beautiful family photographs below, which lived pinned…

Shepherd’s Book List: Top 3 of 2023

January 26, 2024

I was invited back by Shepherd to share a list of 3 books that I read and loved in 2023 (not necessarily published in 2023). I chose: To read my summaries of and why I loved these books, visit: Eliza Wheeler’s 3 favorite reads in 2023(I was thrilled to learn of Vashti Harrison’s Caldecott win for BIG! Go Vashti!) To see the top 100 books read and chosen by authors…

A Special Book Dedication

November 22, 2023

Dedicating a book to someone is usually meant to be an honor for that person, but in the case of ‘What Rosa Brought’, it felt more like the reverse – I was the one who was honored to be able to make the dedication. “For my bookmaking ally, Jen Rofé–and for the memory of hers who lived it.” Jen is my literary agent. Jen’s paternal grandparents and Jewish family members…