[Buffy the eggs layer]

Hi Felinephile forumers,

  can I pick your brains? I have recently discovered pastels and have started doing a couple of pet pics. As a result I have been asked to do some for peoples pets. The first one that I did was from an over exposed photo taken by a friend of his partners cat who died earlier in the year. the cats face was a little lopsided due to a lack of teeth and its eyes were almost closed due to a sore eye and a flash on the camera. I did the portrait but opened up the eyes and balenced the face a little and gave it to him.

Although he could see the resemblence to the photo he wasnt sure if his partner would see her cat in the picture. I gave him it framed and mounted on a sale or return basis and asked for £50 if he decided to keep it. The picture took me about 16 hours so if I deduct the cost of the paper, pastels, fixative, mounts and frame I earend about £1.50 an hour.

I have been asked to do another one for someone else but Im not sure how to ensure that this person would want to buy it when its finished. What I see in a photograph and what a person sees in there pet may not be the same thing.

Can I have your thoughts on how best to do this and your opinions on price etc?

I have attached a photo of it but the depth and texture of the image really dosent come acros in the photo. ( It looked better than that in real life.)

Buffy

Sue

[SallyintNorth]

It's a lovely pic.

I don't know how to answer your question, though.  Years ago, my then hubby and I bought a pair of oil paintings by a Scottish artist.  Not exactly old masters, but lovely, we thought - very evocative Highland scenery with cattle in a glen in the one picture and at the water's edge in the other.  We moved around for a few years, so the paintings were wrapped and boxed for a while.  No matter, we could clearly see them in our minds' eyes.  Eventually we bought what we thought then would be a 'forever' home, so the pictures amongst other possessions were at last unboxed and, in the case of the pictures, rehung.

Ahhh, there were my watering cattle again.  I particularly liked the one with the white blaze and the white patch on its side.  Like most of them, she had magnificent curving Highland horns.

One day I decided to study the picture close up.  My favourite cow was a single brush-stroke of the base colour.

To this day I do not know how that artist got me to see a white blaze and a white patch on the side, and two curving horns, on that single swish of paint...

[robert waddell]

OK you want feedback  well i like cats always have  so not a middle of the road opinion
i think you portrait is very good but i have not seen either the cat or the photo        £50 is cheap in this day and age     you would need to have a range of demonstration pictures with photos of the pets for the owners and buyers to compare       and on taking a commission on get the money or a large percentage of it up front
good luck

[princesspiggy]

we had 2 ( identical!! as one was for me and one for my brother) of our family dog and still have it 20 years later. we thought it was the bees knees tho it never really looked like her, but it was an improvement tho...lol

price depends on how good u are really but ud have to pay urself an hourly wage wud u not? keeping them small wud keep the price cheaper. ud def need a portfolio.
good luck

[doganjo]

A friend did one for me of my special dog, Allez.  I didn't like to say to her that I couldn't see the resemblance to him but all my other friends have commented on how like Allez it is.  So maybe we see the personality in photos of our pets whereas others see the actual appearance of the animal?

I agree that if you accept a commission the pet owner must see photos and paintings side by side to compare, before offering to pay you and you must take at least 50% up front. 

There are a great many pet portrait artists around these days so you need to be good.  That is a nice one of a cat, but if we are to help you the photograph would be needed too

[princesspiggy]

if ur worried about the resemblance of the photos in particularl to someones pet, why dont u make ur pictures  - and frame them or turn them into cards and sell them like that?
i dont think iv got a foto of my gsd that looks like the way i see her. to me she is beautiful but all fotos show her as a big eared big nosed mongrel (nothing against mongrels).
i think beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
id love to see the photo too. 

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Hi Guys,

         thank you for all your helpful feedback. I am really encoraged by your suggestions and advice plus the fact that the person that the portrait was commissioned for was so struck by the resemblance that it made her cry.

I am just completing a portrait of one of my own cats and struggling to capture her mouth just as I want it. when I am happy with it it could be used as an example of my work or turned into a print perhaps as princess piggy suggests.

I agree with Robert that £50 including, frame and double mounts is cheap and a portrait as simple as that took around 16 to 20 hours to complete. The paper costs a couple of quid a sheet and the pastels and fixative means I got a couple of quid an hour for my time.

The bigger the portrait the easier it is to work in pastels but I do use pastel pencils too, to help me to work in a smaller scale. the more time and medium I use, the more effective the end result but that means that the picture becomes more expensive.

If we assume that my pictures have enough of a resemblence to satisfy the customer can you tell me what you would pay for a portrait of your pet, framed and mounted to an overall size of say A3 / A2?

Would you be prepaired to pay the full amount up front or would you feel more confident with a non returnable deposit of 50%?

I will post the photo that I had to work from and you will see that I had to use a bit of artistic licence to turn a photo into a portrait but thats the skill I suppose.

Thanks again for all your feedback, I really do appreciate it,

Buffy 

[Buffy the eggs layer]

here you go,

Buffy

[Cinderhills]

Oh Buffy that is wonderful. 

[SallyintNorth]

Oh, that's brilliant of Polly.   

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Thanks you two but,

would you pay for it  and if so how much.

Honest answers please I love you all too much to be offended

Buffy

[SallyintNorth]

Ok, then!  I'm not the sort of person who gets portraits of her pets done, so I'm not sure I am the best person to ask.  But if you captured Meg-pig, or Hillie the Jersey, as well as you have captured Polly, I would expect to pay £50-£60 for an A2-sized original plus framing.  Last time I had a nice print framed it cost me £55 for the frame, mount, glass and labour.

[Cinderhills]

I think I would pay about 50 pounds unframed for an A3 size.  I would also prefer, if I didn't know you, to pay 50% as a deposit then the rest when it's completed. HTH.

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Thanks you two thats really helpful.

         better get churning some more pictures out. I really like princess piggie's suggestion of producing a range pictures for sale rather than capturing a likeness of somebodys pet.

        The price that you would be prepared to pay for a portrait that size would mean that I would be making about £2 -£3 an hour for my time after deducting the cost of materials.


        Well at least now I know that I cant make a living as an artist!  Better keep buying the lottery tickets

Buffy

[deepinthewoods]

i think you would get quicker with practice, probably be able to get your materials costs down, and be able to charge more as you got better known.
 all good artists take time to get going!