August 7, 2024 - Illustrating books like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz requires absorbing the text and adding your own perspective to the visuals. Just recording what the words say isn’t enough to bring life to the story. Many classic illustrators like NC Wyeth wanted to express an extra point of view by creating scenes that fit with the plot but also expanded the reader’s perspective. I like that approach, but Oz is so visually rich, I found it difficult to choose just which scenes to show the reader and give them more than what was already there. I grew up on the images from the movie first, so re-visualizing the scenes was not easy to keep away from the ground that many, many artists had already trod, and still keep the magic alive for the reading experience. Even…