These ladies are best friends. One of them asked me to paint this portrait of the two of them as a surprise gift for the other one. I agreed to do it, but now I think I should have declined.
I was working from a small photo and, as you can see, it was a flash photo with both of them looking directly into the camera. That is precisely the type of reference photo I dislike intensely. It makes a good photo, but a lousy portrait.
Right now, I'm going to say NEVER AGAIN. If you study the work of famous portrait artists, their work never looks like an ad for good dental checkups. These ladies have great smiles, but when I look at this painting, all I see is teeth. You would think, after my 100 portraits project, I would have known the pitfalls of painting this photo.
