David Elmo Cooper walks us through his step-by-step process for illustrating The Doll Test: Choosing Equality, which tells the story of the Clarks’ landmark research on racial bias and self-perception in Black children. He explains how historical research guided his visual decisions and how he skews perspective intentionally to echo the way Black history has often been distorted or overlooked. Through composition, angle, and sequence, he shows how illustration can carry both the emotional truth of a moment and the weight of its historical context.

Doug Salati, Caldecott winner, author, and illustrator, walks us through the importance of maintaining a sketchbook as a living part of the creative process. He illustrates how sketchbooks function as a place for gathering ideas, exploring visual problems, and experimenting without expectation, allowing new directions and solutions to emerge organically.

Carl Potts draws on his experience as both a comics editor and SVA professor to show how literature can be translated into effective sequential storytelling. He unpacks how creators decide which visuals to show, how those images are juxtaposed and ordered, and how framing, angle, and layout shape the reader’s understanding of each moment. By adjusting what is emphasized within a panel and how elements relate to one another, the artist guides point of view, controls pacing, and builds the emotional and structural rhythm of the story.