Book love

I had to read I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak, for high school book club this month, and by the time I was halfway through it, I was enjoying it so much that I started this drawing / painting in anticipation of blogging about it when I finished the book. I loved loved loved the book…until the last couple of pages. I really really didn't like the way he ended it. He has this fantastic build-up and then takes you right out of the story…ker-thump.

Still, I would not hesitate to recommend the book, despite the weird denouément. Zusak is quite the storyteller. His characters are compellingly real, and his language is electric--fresh, descriptive, evocative. A very different book than the one for which he is better known (The Book Thief), but equally striking.

Regarding the painting, I wanted the lettering to be yellow, showing through a darker background, so I painted yellow over the letters first, but since I knew I was covering it up with a darker color, I was sloppy and just painted the entire area in a big yellow blob. What I didn't realize was that if I used purple (its complementary color) as the overlay, I would end up with them blending into a lovely shade of…mud? Oh well. I had fun with it, and the good part about doing these little fan-art pieces is that they are ephemeral, destined for one use on the blog and then history. I enjoyed drawing the taxi cab!