His paintings now sell for up to $2 million although like Piscasso it's more about the painter than the paint.
He wrote a fine essay about Painting as a Pastime as well. Everyone here should read that. It’s an amazing and inspiring little essay, as you would expect from WSC.
I think these portraits are pretty good. I would encourage W to keep working, dig deeper and stick with it. In the end, he might do a few that are truly great...he certainly has plenty of life experience to draw from to put into his portraits.