Betty Boop

I  just sent out my newsletter for July and I chose this as the illustration- one of our last Friday Long Poses of this session. Shelley posed as "Betty Boop" the 1930's cartoon character. Betty was based on a caricature of the singer Helen Kaine, who, in turn, mimicked the style of the black singer Baby Esther Jones. She was the first rather sexy cartoon character and, as such, created quite a stir. She as supposed to be sixteen years old and was depicted with a curvaceous body topped with a larger head with big eyes and gorgeous eyelashes. She was sometimes threatened by villains but always maintained her virtue - her boop-boop-a-doop. Shelley did a great job with hair style and make-up as well as projecting the personality so this made it a fun session. I used the mixed-media pastel method I have been using for these sessions. I like the way I can get different background effects rather than be limited with a set colour of pastel paper. I won't go into all the detail again here as I have described it in earlier postings--watercolour paper, acrylic colours, acrylic gel for pastels, pastels. But no more Long Poses until the fall now.