Amiri & Odette: The New with the Old

Amiri & Odette: A Love Story by Walter Dean Myers,
with paintings by Javaka Steptoe

Why did I read it?

My sister grabbed this book from the library, and when she finished reading it, I couldn't resist the uniqueness of the cover and idea behind the adaptation.

What happened?

Amiri is the prince of the basketball courts in the Swan Lake Projects. While he appears to own and conquer all he sees and all who challenge him, his mother worries. She understands the violence and danger of his urban life, and wants him to settle down.

Later that night, his mother's desires become his desires, as he meets the girl of his dreams. But a dangerous curse separates their new found love as Odette is promised to Big Red. While Odette believes herself irrevocably chained, Amiri believes their love is stronger than any other tie.

But, defeating Big Red and holding onto the love that they have found will be even more difficult and dangerous than either can imagine.

What did I like or not like?

As Myers puts out in his introduction, the story of Swan Lake has been told in Celtic, Russian, Slavic, and Arabian folklore, and is best known for the Tchaikovsky ballet version of the tale. But Myers felt it appropriate to tell the tale again as he believed modern dangers in young people's lives today are similar to the magic spells of folklore.

Myers sets his retelling of the classic tale in a housing project, relates the action in verse form, and has his words accompanied by collage-on-cinder-block paintings by Javaka Steptoe.

I thought the combination of urban poem and paintings was a new and interesting way to portray the timeless themes and story of Swan Lake.

Paint the Night!

So my boss's name is Miss Karen (I'd say her name is Karen Yother, but I call her Miss Karen so much more often than Karen Yother lol), and her dad's name is Donnel (for some reason we call him that instead of Don. Maybe we're just weird here hehe). In addition to being my boss's dad, he is also a local artist that just did a program for me.

Basically, we bought each participant a 9x12" canvas board, and had some acrylic paint on hand. We laid down some newspaper on the tables, passed out a small paint pallet (a paper plate works just as well if you can't find them at the dollar store), and gave everyone an inch brush and a detail brush. Donnel took the group step by step through painting a great looking night scene (we figured with a theme like "Own the Night," a night scene was awfully appropriate. The above image is a painting he did that gave him the idea for the night scene that we did).

I'm going to post some step by step pictures of the process, but I'm not saying I could paint it based on the pictures. I'm saying that having Donnel was awesome!

Our Tools

 A pencil gave us a Moon and a horizon line. 

We put some gesso putty in the moon which we'll use later.

We double loaded our brush (put one color on one side, and another color on the other side) and then brushed back and forth. The top was black and purple, we then blended in some blue near the horizon line, and then we used some green and brown for the ground. The trick is to put both colors directly on your brush and then just mix them as you paint back and forth. Gives you a great blended look.

 If you put some white paint on a toothbrush and flick it with your finger, you get some great looking stars in the sky.

Then we took our fingers and scratched the paint off of the top of the putty. That way we can see our moon again.

We added some trees (some black and mostly brown), and some purple, black, and green for the leaves. All that was left was initializing the bottom and taking a picture with a frame! 

Thanks Donnel!