Author Archives: Zach
Smelling Like George Washington
One of my birthday presents this year was soap. My wife bought me No. 6 soap from the Caswell-Massey company. It is the same soap George Washington, John Adams, and the Marquis de Lafayette used. The scent profile is strange. It smells medicinal, woodsy, and a little floral, and I’ve grown to appreciate it. This morning I […]
Seven Steps to a Better Bedtime Story
Here’s another post I wrote some years ago for the Storywarren blog… There is a calico cat that treads about our backyard like a fancy hobo. He’s scrawny and haughty both. I did this picture after a conversation my wife and I had about him. If you are the parent entrusted with bedtime story duties, […]
Rebel Without A Qualm: The Counterculture of Gratitude
Here’s an old post I wrote for Storywarren some years ago… I recently read an article urging Christians to be more countercultural. By countercultural I think the author meant that Christians ought to get arrested more often and sing “in your face” anthems at their parents and/or capitalists. Of course, we know that a protest […]
The Angel Knew Papa And the Dog cover
I had the privilege to do the cover for the Rabbit Room re-issue of Doug McKelvey’s book The Angel Knew Papa and the Dog. This book is excellent and a beautiful read. Doug spoke about the book a little over the phone before I started the sketches. He mentioned something about the book’s frontier quality […]
2017
Can’t believe 2017 is already over. Here are some things I did this past year. I continued doing freelance this year. Below is the cover for the latest installment of the Green Ember series, Ember Rising. I also did around 20 interiors. Heather and Picket spend a lot of time separated, and it was difficult […]
2016 Year in Review
Here we are at the end of 2016. Let me tell you a little about what I’ve done this year. Ember Falls, the much anticipated sequel to the Green Ember, released. I did the cover and interiors for that project. Below are a few. I love these books. They’re tremendous fun to work on, and […]
End of Year Post: 2015
The ubiquitous quote about long days and short years describes 2015 well. Here we are at the end of the year, and I’m astonished to find I haven’t posted anything in 6 months. So, here is a monster post revealing some of the work I’ve done that was previously shrouded in mystery. It’s Textbook My day job for […]
Heritage Studies 4th Grade
Here are some chapter openers I did for a 4th grade History book. They are oil paintings digitally sweetened.
Textbook Sketches
I’m working on a 5th grade History book for BJUPRESS. The designer and I have been going back and forth trying to zero in on the style for the book’s interior illustrations. Thought it might be interesting to give a peek at the thoughts behind the book’s illustrations. Initially, I wanted to do something stylized. The […]