Most people who write to me have never commissioned a portrait before. It’s simpler than it sounds. Here’s the whole process, start to finish.
1. You tell me what you want
Fill out the commission form with the medium, the size, and a few sentences about who I’d be painting. Attach your reference photos — the more the better. I’d rather have ten to study than two to squint at. There’s no cost to ask and no obligation once you do.
If you’re not sure what size or medium suits your subject, say so on the form. That’s a normal question and I’ll help you decide.
2. We agree on the details, and I quote you
I’ll write back with a real number — not a range. The price depends on the medium, the size, how many people or animals are in it, and how much background the piece needs.
Colored pencil portraits begin at $450 for an 8×10. Oil paintings begin at $1,200. Whatever your piece comes to, you’ll know it before you commit to anything.
3. Your photographs matter more than you’d think
The portrait can only be as good as what I have to work from. What I need is sharp focus on the face, and light that shows me the shape of it — a window, open shade, an overcast day. Phone photos are fine.
What fights me: heavy shadows across the eyes, harsh flash, and old prints that have gone soft. If your photos aren’t going to get there, I’ll tell you before you pay me anything rather than after. Sometimes the fix is one new picture taken near a window.
4. A deposit puts you on the calendar
I take 50% up front to book your spot, and the balance is due before your portrait ships. Locally I use Zelle, which costs neither of us anything.
The deposit is non-refundable. I start buying materials and turning down other work the day you book, so it holds the date honestly on both sides.
5. You approve the composition before I start
Before any pencil or paint touches the surface, I’ll send you a mockup — a working layout built from your photographs showing how the piece will be composed. Where everyone sits, how they’re cropped, what the background does.
You sign off on that first. It means we agree on what the portrait is before I spend weeks making it, and you’re never guessing at what’s coming.
6. I paint it
Most commissions take three to four weeks from the approved mockup. I’ll send progress photos along the way — at the drawing stage and again when the piece is close.
The composition is settled, so revisions at this point are about likeness. At the drawing stage I’ll adjust it as much as it needs, no charge. Near the finish you get one round of fine-tuning. Changes to the composition itself after approval — a different background, another subject — are new work, quoted separately.
7. It comes to you
I ship nationally, packed properly and insured. Shipping is billed separately from the portrait itself, because it depends on the size, the weight, and where it’s going — I’ll give you the shipping cost along with your quote so there are no surprises at the end. If you’re near Lexington, South Carolina, skip all of that and come pick it up.
I don’t offer framing. Your portrait arrives unframed so you can choose a frame that belongs in your house, rather than one I picked from four hundred miles away.
What you’re actually getting
One object, made by one person, that exists nowhere else. Every mark on it was put there by my hand over the course of weeks. Nothing about it was printed, generated, or automated.
Forty years from now it will still be the thing your family points to on the wall. That’s what the price is for, and that’s what the time is for.
Ready when you are
Tell me who you want painted, and I’ll tell you what it takes.