11X14 oil on canvas
I finished this sweet couples portrait. These are my friends parents. My friend commissioned me to paint this portrait for her parents for their 50th anniversary. She loves how it turned out. Since taking this picture I did a little more work on his hand. In the photo I was working from they both had cameras hanging around their necks, I think they were bird watching. They were definitely hiking around in the woods somewhere.
It was fun to do portraits again, it’s been a little while. I’m starting a new portrait today of another friends mom that passed away last year. I will probably cry while painting it. I met her a few times, she was a delightful woman, and beautiful.
Jill Millward Artwork 
Your portraits are so good! I love all of this, but I have to say I especially admire the teeth, which I think are really hard to paint convincingly so that they look natural. You’ve done a wonderful job. 🙂
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Thank you! When I first started painting portraits I’d take pics of people and ask them to smile with their mouth shut. Then I tried that with my nephew and he wouldn’t comply so I had to paint his teeth. I’ve found that teeth look best (in my paintings) when they are not over defined. When they are blurred a little they aren’t the focus.
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Sounds like good advice to me… 🙂
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It is so good… God Bless you 🙂
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Thank you so much!! what a nice thing to say.
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Great progression from start to finish, looks fantastic! As for the teeth, they are a pain to do. I wound up having to not think so much about them and like you say, not overly define them, give the illusion of actual individual teeth, every artist has their style. Personally, I’ll take fake teeth over actual ones lol.
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The first time I tried teeth I blocked them in and thought I’d come back to them later and figure them out. But in the end just left them alone with the initial blur of a block in. I’ve had some really bad times with teeth but I don’t panic over them anymore. I don’t ever want them to be the focus. Thanks!! Jill
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Yep, i tried at first and it wound up looking like they had a mouth full of Chiclets. Awful, and that just wasn’t natural looking, so I had to redo them and with some trickery using various shades of grey they came out pretty decent.
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