How I did that cover

The July Harper's Cover Step-by-Step

I was asked by Harper’s to come up with a cover appropriate to the 250th July 4 observance. The art director Sheila Wolfe included in her brief that the lead piece (as yet unwritten) would discuss the state of the nation in the midst of the current crisis.

Here are parts of the process shown below the fold today: how we got from very rough sketches to final watercolor, including my own idiosyncratic techniques along the way.