Jen and Jon's Big Day

Great fun - hope they were pleased. Beware the teeth though in portraiture....

Thank you for your comment and please be assurred I always beware of teeth, particularly on large dogs or other mammels! So I may see your comment as constuctive, is it possible to say a little more please? What, specifically, would you need to see done differently? Thanks for your time and look forward to hearing from you. Phil

It would be presumptuous of me to lecture anyone in portraiture, but the fact remains that teeth are extremely difficult to render convincingly. For me at least. This is not intended as a criticism of your portrait, but unless you just want to hint at them, then at least I'd try to avoid pure white because it looks incongruous. Rermemer too to vary the colour from the well-lit front ones to the shady side teeth. Somehow, over-defining them makes them look false, goofy or just weird!

Teeth are a complete swine to paint, Philip - perhaps especially in watercolour, because in oil (my preferred medium) you can adjust them again and again; this just isn't possible in watercolour - once the white has gone, it's gone and you can't recapture it. In this case of course, it's impossible to form any sort of firm judgement because we haven't seen the original choppers.... probably, though, there would be a hint of shadow cast by the upper lip of both subjects, and a further shadow, or just melding into one, at the corners of the mouth. You won't see this in photographs - it may be there, but there won't be enough information for you to paint from. I assume you did work from a photograph here - it would have been sheer murder for them and for you to have painted it from life! - and you've done a really good job.