Nice lips - just not red

This Elena from a two-weeks ago Friday painting/drawing session---- most of them paint, I work in pastels. I think Elena has lovely lips and I worked to do them justice - only they aren't the exaggerated red lips I mentioned in my last post! Maybe I should play with this and do another drawing from it, to copy that style and see what happens???
   
Around here, some effort is being made to prepare for Christmas- just used the pot that had the Japanese lanterns in it for a base for a pot of greenery - salal, cedar and red-twig dogwood - by the front door. I think the lantern painting is finished and will post it later. Not much to do for gift-shopping as gift-exchange has been cut back. I wish I had some kids to buy books for as there seem to be more exciting and imaginative books out for younger kids these days - as well as some of my favourite picture books still around. Ezra Jack Keats "A Snowy Day" is one I've long liked. A new one out called The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywell for 2 to 5 year old's looks like a lot of fun and could lead to some interesting chats about colour. I'm excited a about an upcoming book by Sophie Benini Pietromarchi about colour. She teaches workshops for children in Europe and this  new book is aimed at children 8 and up and artists of all ages. More later- I anxiously await it! In the meantime, there is a delightful book by the same author - called The Book Book- with all sorts of imaginative projects. For one thing I am going to sharpen my pencils by hand (especially coloured pencils) and save the shavings to try something different to play with in my sketch book play projects.

Warts and all...

So here is the pumpkin and the gourds- a bit of fun because of all the warts. They are still sitting in my studio but I guess they are destined for the compost box soon. Interesting to see the different shades of orange. I think the "Lanterns" painting is done now - although there will be one further "mull" and then I'll also see what the comments are at the critique. I'll have to buy some more mandarins if I want to paint some- the others have been eaten. I've been using pastels, rather than painting for figure studies again and I did two this past week - which have yet to be photographed- then I'll post them. The paper is easier to store than more canvases. Strangely, figure studies seem to sell in New York but not here on the West Coast. I wonder why? I was looking at some paintings by Milton Kobayashi. I like the way he crops the paintings tightly and has interesting space with the flat dark areas. I wonder why he exaggerates the lips so much? They have very red lipstick, very bowed mouths and quite full lips- basically all the models seem to have the same lips. -and then Malcolm Liepke has pretty well the same lips. Is this a male fantasy? I  might try tighter cropping but I think I"ll stay away from those lips.