I should have done this in one day, but I stretched it into two....
Day 1
Cheri's lips are finished and I'm ready to start on the teeth. Teeth are really hard to do. I don't know why that is, but I have found them to be so. The writer Hunter Thompson described the teeth in one particular artwork as looking “like jellied baseballs". I often think of that quote. It's hard to get teeth to not look like jellied baseballs.
I think I’ll put them off until tomorrow. I made good progress today, and I am happy with it. (Lips are hard to do too.)
The swatches-scrap on this picture shows the pencil colors I used for the lips.
When I shared my opinion about doing about teeth on Facebook, Cory H. commented. I thought his comment and my reply would be of interest to artists.
Cory:
This looks great so far. Teeth are really hard. Lockard, the artist I studied pastel portrait painting with, would urge us to avoid toothy smiles, and I think it’s true you don’t see many smiling portraits. When it’s come up for me I try to play down the brightness, keep the teeth well below the “whites” of the eyes and highlights on the face. I’m really looking forward to your solution in this piece!
Kevin:
Years ago I was a member of the Portrait Society of America, and there was an extreme prejudice in that organization against ever showing teeth. The culture was that portraits should only be done from life, not photos, and when a subject is sitting for hours for a portrait, they can't possibly hold a convincing smile for that period of time. It was only when I was thinking about the caption for this post that it suddenly occurred to me there might be another reason (which nobody talked about), which is that not many artists could do teeth very well.
Cory, you are absolutely right about keeping the brightness of the teeth below the "whites" of the eyes and skin highlights. I use cream pencil blended with a very pale warm grey ("French Grey 10% and 20% in Prismacolor pencils). The part I struggle with that makes them look like "baseballs", is trying to portray the dark "line" between each tooth. Delineating each tooth from the next one. It makes the person look like they are holding a row of white gumballs in their mouth. Having learned that lesson the hard way, I'll be very careful not to do that in this portrait.
Day 2
Here’s today’s work with Cheri’s teeth finished. I’m happy with the result.
Double portrait of Cheri McNealy and her beloved late husband Larry McNealy, in progress.
🎨 Prismacolor pencil on "Felt Grey" Canson Mi-Teintes paper.
20 x 24 inches.
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