Procedure and Fees for Portrait Commissions

About the artist : Portrait Portfolio : Artist's Home Page


If you are serious about commissioning a portrait, we will first discuss your requirements. You pay a non returnable deposit of 25% at this stage. A portrait will normally take about eight weeks from receiving your photos, but I will always try to work to a specific time requirement such as a birthday, if requested.

Many people prefer to commission a portrait using existing photographs.

I will describe the progress of a typical commission below.


You contact me by email, and we discuss your requirements. You pay 25% of the final price as a commissioning fee, which gets you onto my waiting list.
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You send me several good photos and I decide on the composition, probably making working drawings and discuss this with you.
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I will then start on the main portrait, which will be on a prepared canvas and will be painted in artist's quality oil paints or artists quality acrylics. Oil paints impose their own agenda. The paints dry slowly, so the process cannot be hurried. Portrait painting is also by nature a slow process. I need to live with a portrait to see it properly, making small adjustments or large ones to achieve the expression I feel the painting requires.
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When I am happy with it, I will send a picture of the finished painting, via email, to you. If you like it and want to complete the purchase you pay the balance and I will dispatch the portrait to you.
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If you do not like the portrait there is no obligation to buy it. The commissioning fee will have paid for the materials and contributed towards my living expenses. I will be free to sell the picture elsewhere.
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After you have received the portrait, you still have the right to return it in good condition, if you do not like it, within 2 weeks. I will repay the purchase price, less the commissioning fee.



If you do not have any good photos email me and we can discuss how to do this. If you are reasonably local I can take a series of photos myself. Alternatively I will give you some hints on lighting etc for you to take some more snaps.
By good photos, I mean good likeness and good expression. I am not interested in the quality of the print. Often snaps are much better than studio portraits.
Generally the price will be £700 for a portrait of one person.

The priceis for a single subject painted on prepared, stretched canvas with artist's quality paints.
If you require a canvas size, which is not standard, this can be arranged.
Subsequent portraits can be commissioned by the same client for 90% of the price.
Animals cost about 1/3 of these prices. They are painted from your photographs.


Additional costs:
Postage and insurance costs.
Framing.
extra figures
extra animals
specific backgrounds may be an extra cost.
Travel and accomodation expenses, if any are incurred.