It goes without saying that I am an avid bookworm. Yet today's challenge ("draw a favorite book character-- can't be from a movie") took some thinking; almost all of my favorite characters are in books that have been movie-fied. Even Rose Brier from The Shadow of the Bear and the rest of the Fairy Tale Novels Retold series.

I wanted to choose a book that actually meant a great deal to me; I wanted to choose a character who remained bright in my memory.

I read The Great Good Thing back in second or third grade, and have come back to it from time to time. It's a lovely story about-- well, I don't want to give too much away, but it's about book characters who live outside of their story. It's pretty deep, too...

The drawing is based off of one scene when the book is on fire and the princess Sylvie leads the other characters out of the book, across an ocean, and into the Reader's mind. Half of it is drawn with words (my favorite lines from the book), not ordinary lines. :)

It was partially based off of the book's cover image:


I'm kind of loving this new technique-- I finally bought some India ink and cleaned out my calligraphy pen nibs. I love fountain pens dipped in bottles of ink. :) Using words as lines is difficult but fun. I want to try this again sometime, when I have more time and am working on something larger than 4 by 6 inches!

"Sylvie had an amazing life, but she didn't get to live it very often..."

-the Great Good Thing by Roderick Townley

P.S. Click the image to see a larger version. The image is bigger than the original artwork!

P.P.S. I just found out that there is a trilogy based on this book. Now I'm curious. Next time we're at the library, I'm headed towards the children's/juvenile section...
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