Maybe halfway between the smile and speech. The muscles around his eyes moved and made them glint in the most interesting way. A little bit of challenge, a give-it-all-I-can-take-it sort of look. Typically, Anne didn't do portraiture; she was satisfied with her shapes and her figurines, which provided endless implication and replication of life and thought without needing a human face to express them. However, she had done one or two works in a mosaic type fashion, using small, irregular pieces of paper of varying shapes. The result often became rather abstract, but the reception had been good.
Perhaps she would try again.
Smiling, she lifted the flat piece she was working on, put her mouth against it, and blew. The paper popped out into three dimensions, acquiring the interwoven roundness of the others on the table. She put it down amongst its brethren, rolled it a little with one finger. "They're ornaments for the tree."