Teeth Showing

[Cynthia Daniel]

Back to the old concept that people will buy what they can see. If you have toothy grins in your portfolio, you will tend to attract clients that like their children's portraits with toothy grins. Robert Schoeller almost never painted them and thus, was seldom asked, but still had plenty of work. He attracted the kind of work that he showed.

I've often theorized that the reason there were so few smiles in portraits and photos of old also had a lot to do with the fact that life was very hard for most people. I wouldn't be smiling much if I had to do laundry by hand, do canning for the winter, heat my stove with wood I had to chop, make candles for light, etc. Of course, the wealthy had servants to do that.

[Chris Saper]

Hi Rochelle,

I usually avoid teeth if at all possible. Here is my advice about painting them:

-Do not individualize each tooth. Paint the teeth as connected forms, on a series of planes that lie on an arc.

-It's mainly important to get the value right. Teeth are usually darker than one might think.

-Be true to the expression. Once a person is smiling enough to show teeth, their eyes begin to close. Resist the pull to paint wide-open eyes with a toothy smile

-Mimimize the value of the shadow you will see in the nasal labial fold (the crease running from the corner of the mouth to the outside of the nostril's wing) as your photo will show it darker than it would be if you were observing the subject from life.

I also agree that big smiles tend to look more frozen, and that gentle pleasant expressions are more timeless.

Chris

[Karin Wells]

Charge extra for teeth? Hmmmmm... now THAT is a really good idea! Thanks Rochelle. Sometimes people balk when I say that I will not paint anyone with their teeth showing.

Maybe the best way to put a quick end to these discussions is to tell them that I will indeed paint an open mouth for $500 extra, plus an additional $250 for each tooth.

This will help me pay MY dental bills and make both me and my dentist very happy.

[Karin Wells]

Jim, I only suggested charging for teeth as a way of discouraging those who won't take "NO, I don't paint teeth" for an answer. I've found that folks are apt to back off if you threaten their wallet.

The thought of painting a gleaming set of choppers like the ones you did Jim, would surely lead me to a complete and total nervous breakdown.

I confess, I couldn't possibly produce as good a portrait as you did in your example. Congratulations on doing the impossible!

By the way, I remember seeing in the Peabody Museum in Salem, MA a framed artist's list of prices circa 1700's. It really was a standard practice for an artist to charge by the hand, ear, etc. This is why so many early portraits of men had one hand hidden inside their shirt...they were too poor/cheap to pay for painting two hands. (Note that there weren't many toothy grins in those days either). Next time I'm in the neighborhood, I'll get a copy of this list and post it.

[Jim Riley]

I agree with Michele's comments and would add that as difficult as they are it is neccessary to learn how to paint them. You will have occasions when it you must include the teeth but otherwise I find the big grin with teeth an indication that the subject has responded to something of the moment or to the presense of a camera and is thereby less revealing of long term personality and character.

I would avoid charging extra for teeth or any other parts of the face and head. Would you charge less for one ear showing and long hair versus short, etc? I don't think you want to get into piecemeal assembly discussions with clients.

Attached is a detail of a posthumous portrait with the biggest full mouth/teeth challenge I ever had to face. Actually, I dread more so the kind that I will soon face when I paint an older gentleman with crooked and discolored teeth showing through a half smile.

[Tom Edgerton]

We may be opening up a separate thread here, but here goes. I phrased that post partly that way to spark discussion. I really don't apologize for liking my clients. It's healthy.

Maybe I'm just wistful for the really quiet, evocative introspection I see in other's portraits and would like to explore more of it in mine. One of my favorite child portraits ever is a wonderful, quiet, head-and-shoulders that Dawn Whitelaw placed in the PSOA finals year before last. I wonder if I could bring a little more "discerning watchfulness" to my sessions and get this, but I'm pretty outgoing and I know it influences what I get back. And if I think TOO much while shooting my reference, I get in my own way and miss everything. It's a Zen thing.

Also, I do often give my clients a choice between an outward and an introspective image, and often press for the latter, but I'm enough of a businessperson not to get in a huff if they don't choose what I want them to. And, I do a good bit of posthumous work, and the available reference in these instances is usually a smiling file photograph. So some of it is out of my control. Cynthia's point about having what you WANT to paint in your portfolio is well taken, also -people will pick what you show 'em.

I'm going to bow out of this thread now and see where it goes. Maybe check back in later.

Love to everyone.

[Tom Edgerton]

Usually when an artist tells me they won't do teeth, it's because they haven't done it much and are afraid to. There is no tenet for "appropriateness" of teeth in a portrait. If it's central to the subject's character, just do it. Everything comes with practice.

I try to obtain a relaxed, "in-between" expression, however, with some subtlety, as it wears better over time. The 500-watt, public relations grin is better suited to photographic portraits and short-term viewing.

One method I use for teeth and for the whites of eyes is to paint them the same value as the surrounding skin tone first, and adjust slightly as needed. This keeps me from painting them too light and brilliant. (Most of the time with eyes, I paint the whites at the same time as the surrounding skin, with the same skin color value, and then gray them only slightly to correct color.

For teeth, I draw them very individually and carefully first--teeth are never perfect and are as individual as fingerprints--and then blur the divisions between them slightly, especially between the front two, to avoid the impression of a row of perfect little tombstones or "chicklets."

[Tom Edgerton]

Mike, I can empathize. The hardest commission I ever had was a little boy and BOTH of his parents were orthodontists. They not only wanted him as he was, but, I think at least subconsciously, wanted him as he would be when they were done correcting his smile. I ended up having to try and read their minds, an exercise in diminishing returns.

Rochelle is right that a lot of my portraits show some teeth. Partly because, I think, I'm comfortable painting them, and partly because my interaction with and attitude toward the sitters creates that kind of feeling. I do worry sometimes that I end up liking the subjects TOO much, and that it skews the work, especially in the portraits of children.

As regards the old masters, who can say what actually was going on? The necessity for subjects to sit for long periods, in lieu of photographic sessions, was the main factor, I believe. However I still come down on the position that if your subjects smile a lot - are very extroverted, outward and warm - that's how you should portray them. I'll leave it to the work of Frans Hals, one of my heroes, to make my point.

Happy painting (no pun intended)!

[Michele Rushworth]

Several of my portraits lately have included toothy smiles (some at the parents' request, some were posthumous portraits from existing photos, etc). I didn't charge extra.

For me the key is not to make the teeth too bright. I found the best "color" for teeth is varying mixtures of burnt umber and white. That way they're not too yellow and not to grey.

The drawing of the teeth has to be perfect (each tooth exactly the right size and shape, etc) or it won't look right. It's as time consuming as doing the eyes, if not more!

Of course, many people feel that a portrait should show a more subtle, timeless expression than what you get from a toothy grin. I guess that's up to each artist and client to decide.

[Michele Rushworth]

It seems to me that the reason the "old masters" painted more subdued expressions (no teeth) is because they didn't have photographs to work from that captured those brief flashing smiles. We think of these traditional old portraits and that's what has created the aesthetic we often try to emulate today.

I'm happy to paint a portrait either way, depending on the character of the subject and what happens during the photo sessions. Sometimes the irrepressible joy of a kid is what a parent wants to capture and remember and a beaming smile is the only way to express that.