Work in progress....

My immediate thought on seeing it is that the eyes aren't right. She looks cross eyed - look carefully at how much " white" is showing at the outer corners, you have too much. What I find very helpful is to either turn both upside down and carefully compare or look at your drawing in the mirror as you proceed, you'll soon see what's not quite right. Also, on looking again, the forehead in your drawing is not as big as in the photo. Portraits are difficult, more so, I feel, if you know the subject well. It's a constant process of small alterations and amendments as you go along - I know this only too well, I've just done a portrait of my husband ( in the gallery ). Go for it though and good luck! Let us see the end product.

My best advice would be not to paint someone with a full on smile! Throughout the annals of art history there are very few portraits displaying a full set of teeth and for good reason!

I've just learnt a valuable lesson in observation. I looked at the portrait and couldn't see any problems, now I see what you all mean. Yes, I've also heard, david19 that you shouldn't paint a full on smile. The best thing is to see how it goes Ellen. What's the worst that can happen?

That's all you can do Ellen - lots of gusto needed.

Nummer Eins - I thought I'd get a bit European - there's a section down below for Work in Progress that lilysnana may not have noticed, Nummer Zwei - there are good reasons for not painting a portrait with a full on smile - these are, in no particular order: it's obvious when you do that you've worked from a photograph, not a live model: because no one can sustain a smile for the length of time it would take to draw it properly without their face turning into a hideous grimace, suggestive of an axe-murderer who's just spotted a likely victim; on the whole, painting from photographs just gives you a painted copy of the photograph, which is all the more likely to be true with portraiture because you've no choice but to stick to the basic reality - unless you're Picasso, perhaps, and then you wouldn't really need a photo anyway; and it's difficult to paint or draw teeth to make them look realistic - I've done it, and have kept the portrait (it's here somewhere) as a stern reminder to myself not to do it again ... although there are other reasons for hiding it away, principally that its subject died suddenly before I could complete her portrait or do a better job; but I digress: it was murderously difficult to do without making her look as if she had a mouth full of marble memorials...... Ironic that so soon, she found herself beneath one - but there we are: in the midst of life we ARE in death, as the reverend persons so cheerily remind us. Portraiture should be about .... well, many things; and perhaps "should be about" is the wrong way of putting it: but I look for a portrait to take me behind the skin and bone, to tell me something or infer something about a person's character. By the nature of things, a full on grin is pulling a face, either involuntarily or to give a friendly impression - it doesn't tell us much, and that's why most portraiture down the ages only shows people actually laughing or toothily smiling when it's caricature. Even The Laughing Cavalier isn't actually open-mouthedly grinning at us. As for the drawing above - the eye problem is caused by the iris being very pale, which is giving a slightly manic look; there's also slightly too much white in the outer corner of the girl's left eye (the right as we're looking at it). You're giving yourself a problem if you try to bring the drawing along while the eyes remain just indicated, because the eyes add much of the character to any portrait. and it's the character you want to achieve. http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk

Eyes much better (and I realize the problem is that you don't have the kids around when you need them: I've been trying to capture a likeness of my late grandfather for years now; sometimes I think I've got it, then look the next day and no, I haven't. Foggy photos and failing memory [he died in 1978] just make it so difficult). We tend to think the likeness lies in the eyes: I have a feeling it really lies in the mouth, and more probably it's the combination of features - I've seen portrait painters get so close to their subject that they must have been able to smell what they had for dinner - but you need to really SEE detail, structure, scale: it's the sternest of the artistic disciplines, I think. It separates the men from the boys, or in your case the nanas from the nonos and nanas alike. On the watercolour vs acrylic front - the advantage of watercolour is that you can wash it out - obviously you can't keep doing that, or it'll turn into a mess, but (others WILL disagree) I've found watercolour portraits rather easier than oil or acrylic ones for that reason. I remember Rupert Cordeux (by the way Rupert, PLEASE come back to us!) painted a self-portrait in oil; the paint got thicker and thicker, and claggier and claggier, until he put a pickaxe through it. But I wouldn't get too hung up on the medium, whichever one you use the basic drawing is the important thing. You can do an awful lot, though, with liquid acrylic - again, the drawing must be right or you're letting yourself in for self-torture, but layers can be adjusted with just a touch of opaque colour, and worked on almost endlessly. I wouldn't necessarily take to it just because you've not succeeded with any other technique, but that's not the issue here: your basic drawing is (so far as my one eye can see it) sound. Now to add colour! http://www.isleofwightlandscapes.net http://www.wightpaint.blogspot.co.uk