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Some years ago now, when I thought it was time to paint a portrait of my daughter, I was constrained by the fact that I was living in Taipei and she was visiting for but a few days, none of which she'd booked for sitting for a portrait by her dad. I did pencil and paint sketches and then turned to capturing photo references, and I kept trying to get her into "poses" in which she didn't show teeth. But the fact was, she's a person who is either always smiling or who, in the course of her natural conversational animation, is never close-mouthed. I tried to get her to settle into a close-lipped pose and she finally protested. "Dad! You can't ever NOT see my teeth! You can't not paint my teeth."
And it was so, and she was right, and for me to insist otherwise would have been foolish and would have itself produced a "fake" image, because in my child's exuberance, a smile is natural, as is the animation with which she greets everyone and everything. (Bottle that, and you're a millionaire.)
Wish I could say I did it best, but Chris Saper did. Her version is on her website.
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