They say “a picture is worth a thousand words” and whoever "they" are sure have it right! Illustrations bring the words of "Sweet Dreams UVA" to life, especially for our little readers. I am thrilled that we found an extremely talented illustrator, Adam Schartup, to give our characters, CavMan, Junior and let’s not forget Marquis the Mouse, shape and color. Adam was great to work with throughout the process, from test sketches, character conception, and story boarding to our final production. He moved countless trees, lines, clouds, and bridges as we worked together to capture Charlottesville and the University of Virginia as best we could!

One of our first big challenges was determining how best to depict the iconic architecture of Grounds so that children could immediately recognize the actual buildings when they see them in person. The University of Virginia, particularly the Rotunda and the Lawn, have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UNESCO identifies localities of cultural heritage that are “of outstanding value to humanity.” In short, the neo-classical architecture of UVA and Monticello, Mr. Jefferson’s adult home, reflects the ideas, principles, and values of Mr. Jefferson and ought to be preserved for posterity. For a more thorough explanation of the UNESCO designation, please click here.

In order to capture the detail and design of the architecture, Adam and I toyed with the idea of using photographs of the main buildings as the background to the illustrations, onto which filters and his talented gift would be applied to achieve the desired effect. Ultimately, we shied away from this approach to preserve the artistry of the project. I believe we chose wisely and that Adam brilliantly depicted UVA for our little readers!

With the  contract signed, sealed, and delivered and an early summer release (gotta have the book in time for Wahoo football season) ahead, there was still much to do. At that point in the publishing process, the manuscript had been reviewed, edited and scrubbed about 40 times before I submitted it to Mascot, so I was not planning on major editing work for the verses once I sent it to Mascot. But, what really needed attention were the illustrations. I had lots and lots of ideas for the illustrations, and aimed to show my little readers the iconic architecture around Grounds, familiarize them with the most frequented UVA places and lingo, and of course get them excited to cheer for the Hoos!

I wrote detailed descriptions of the visual effect and specific images needed for each spread, or 2 adjacent pages of illustrations, to provide the illustrator. That said, I knew illustrators had lots of experience with capturing a little one's imagination so I built in some flexibility for the illustrator to be creative! I was thrilled to see my verses begin coming to live for our little Hoos!