Anyway, fyneart.com is apparently located in the UK, so I wondered what options there were here in the US….

I’ve found several companies doing this same thing. American Oil Portraits, Oil Paint Portraits, Colorview Portraits, Portrait Masters, Paint Your Life, and Anything Painted on Canvas.

It looks like hte prices start from around $80 at the lowest and go up from there. Some of the sites offer oil paintings only, but some offer charcoal or other options. (Charcoal seems a bit less expensive.) Whatever you choose I’m sure that a painting would be a memorable gift. These are the kinds of things passed down from one generation to another.

I think for any of these I would want to take a look at their work first, many seem to require only 20% up front and then you will have a chance to take a look at the work and approve it before paying the balance. Since you can use any digital photo, there’s no reason it has to be a recent picture, but it could even be a remake of an older painting.