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reading a lot, talking to people, and attending a Passover Seder with his wife Mary at a friends’ house in Washington, D.C. He said that his editor at Scholastic, Inc., Dianne Hess, is Jewish and walked him through it.
When Mr. Bittinger first submitted sketches of his original ideas for the book, he included two boys in the book’s family. The editor suggested that he use two girls instead. He did this, submitting more drawings, ending up going through four stages of drawings before the editor said the drawings had the vitality needed for the book.
Two local girls were used as Mr. Bittinger’s models for some of the illustrations: Hannah and Hallee Morgan, daughters of Judge Douglas Ginsburg and Hallee Morgan of Flint Hill. Hannah and Hallee are the main girls in the illustrations, and the rest were made up out of his imagination, said Mr. Bittinger.
He used his own hands to draw from, and sculpted clay heads for all the people except the two girls. Still lifes were set up also to paint from.
The illustrations show a lot of activity and movement, something that the publisher wanted for the book.
Many of them show the family members at the dining room table during various stages of the Seder, one with the family dog with his paw on the table, maybe trying to get a piece of matzah for himself.
Mr. Bittinger signed the contract to illustrate the book two years ago and finished the illustrations a year ago. The book was released this January.
He is already at work on illustrations for a second book, about a family who is building a house on a Civil War battlefield, entitled The Blue and the Gray. He hopes to have these done by September.
Along with this new direction Mr. Bittinger’s art has taken, he still does a lot of portraits. In the State
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