Your animal,
painted once
How a commission runs
Five stages 8–12 weeks end to end-
Day one
Photographs
Email me three or four pictures of your animal — one straight-on of the head, one of the whole body, and any that catch the expression you know them by. Phone photographs are fine. Bad light is not: daylight, no flash.
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Within 2 days
A price and a size
I come back with an exact figure, a size that suits your wall, and the surface I would use. Nothing is owed at this point and nothing is committed.
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Week 1–2
The study
A small painted study, photographed and sent to you. If the likeness is not there, I make another. If you decide not to go on, you owe nothing and the study stays with me.
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Week 3–10
The painting
The full piece is built over several weeks, with progress photographs at two or three points. A third of the fee is due once you have approved the study; the balance is due before it leaves.
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On completion
Signed and sent
Signed and dated on the reverse with a certificate, crated to size, insured, and couriered. Hand-delivered and hung if you are within an hour or two of the studio.
The straightforward version
A commission costs about what a piece of the same size costs in the catalogue. A third is paid once you have approved the study, the balance before it leaves the studio.
I paint from your photographs, but I don't copy them. A photograph flattens an animal; the job of the painting is to put back what the camera took out — the set of the head, the weight of the body, the thing you recognise from across a field.
If the finished piece is not right, you are not obliged to take it. You lose the deposit, I keep the painting, and we part on good terms.
Two animals in one painting is possible and costs about half as much again. More than two, ask me first — group portraits are harder than they look and I would rather say no than do it badly.