Artist: David Macaulay

Illustration from The Way We Work by David Macaulay, 2008

"I draw to understand things." Artist David Macaulay, illustrator and author of "The Way We Work: Getting to Know the Amazing Human Body," "Mosque," "Cathedral," and "The New Way Things Work," among other books, talks about the creative process behind "Rome Antics," his look at the city that wasn't built in a day. His books may be for children, but they're fascinating for adults as well. Don't yet know Macaulay? Prepare to be amazed. Learn more about "Building Big," "Castle," "Cathedral" at PBS.

• 2008 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture (he comes on at 15:50 or so. True fact: Once illustrated a Chinese menu!)

• Cogito.org: "I’ve never written “stories for children.” I’ve only ever made books for myself that I thought others might enjoy. I work hard to tell them as well as I can, but I remain the primary audience throughout the process. I’m the audience I know best, after all."

• The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance: "Like any kind of literacy, visual literacy is a kind of shared vocabulary that links people to each other and to the world around them. Instead of words, visual literacy has to do with two- and three-dimensional images from different places and times, real as well as invented. The greater our visual vocabularies, the easier it is to communicate with precision and passion, to "illustrate" what we are trying to say, and to better understand what someone else is trying to say to us."

• National Building Museum (.pdf): (On "Unbuilding") "I didn't want to build another building from the ground up. So I thought, well, just take it apart."

• Norman Rockwell Museum: Macaulay talks about the genesis of "The Way We Work"

• On "The Way We Work": Bookstream interview

• Ted Talk featuring  David Macaulay