The Mouth

Class moved on to the mouth yesterday. A closed mouth smile is of course the easiest to render. If teeth are showing it's best to not draw the teeth but draw the spaces around them. They tend to look less like Chickletts!! Also if you are rendering teeth really look at their color. They are never stark white. You will often see Cream or a mauve or even some blue but never all white. There may be a tiny white highlight where the light catches here and there.

While rendering the lips shown here I discovered Prismacolor's new colors Chestnut 1081 and Mahogany Red 1029 work really well for the colors I need on this dark face. I used them to map out the shapes in the lips.

Next I used Peach to start mapping out the shapes around the lips. Henna was used to continue rendering the lips and adding the shape of the lips.

In the fourth photo I have used Tuscan read and Dark Umber to fully deepen the shadows between the lips and at the corners. Little spots of black have been added to the darkest most deep set areas. The color of the lips was then blended with Rosey Beige and Pink Rose.

To anchor the lips I have completed the shadows around the mouth moving up the value scale to Dark Umber, blending it all with Beige. See the last photo.

As with the eyes, later I will adjust and deepen all these colors as I complete the rest of the portrait.