A 10x14 pastel portrait for 900 zł and I still feel sick saying the number
I put 900 zł on a 10x14 pastel portrait last month. First time I ever said a number out loud without adding "but we can work something out" after it. My hands were shaking a bit, which is embarrassing to type.
For context, pastel is fast compared to oils but it is not fast. Toned paper, the layering, the fixing between passes, the part where I sit with it two days and decide the jaw is wrong and start the whole lower half again. Eleven, twelve hours if it goes well. Then I did the actual math and it came to about 75 zł an hour, before paper and the fixative that costs more than I want to admit because I buy the good one.
And here is the thing I keep turning over. I did not raise it because I suddenly decided I am worth it. I raised it because I had four commissions stacked in one week and I was not sleeping, and I thought if I say the real number maybe two people go away and I can breathe. Nobody went away. All four said yes, quickly, no haggling. One asked if she could pay extra for a bigger size.
So now I am sitting here slightly annoyed at myself, which is a strange feeling to have about your own pricing. All those months of undercharging and calling it being realistic.
I have another one to quote tomorrow and I have already written 1,300 zł on the scrap paper, and I keep looking at it like it is a typo. If anyone has gone through the jump from "please like me" pricing to the other thing, I would genuinely like to hear how the first few went, because the number itself was the easy part. Saying it without flinching is the rest of it.
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The shaking hands part, I recognise that. It took me years to say a price without immediately offering an escape route. It's not arrogance to be paid for hours of work, and "we can work something out" is just you volunteering to be the one who absorbs the shortfall.
That said, 75 zł an hour before materials is still low for something that takes eleven hours and gets reworked. The jaw redone, the lower half restarted, that is not slow, that is just what pastel costs. You paid for your own training and your own time to get to the point where you can see the jaw is wrong, and that skill is in the price too, not only the hours.
The number will feel less sick the second and third time you say it. It is the first time that is the worst. C'est ça.
The escape route is the tell, I think. You only offer one when you half believe the price is a favour rather than a rate.
I do paper work, small things, and the hours are invisible in the same way. Nobody sees the two days you leave it on the wall before you know the jaw is wrong. That part is not billed and it is the part that makes it good.
900 for 10x14 is not a lot. If anything the next one should be higher, and you will survive saying it.
The two days on the wall. Yes. That is exactly it, and nobody wants to hear "I stared at it for two days" as a line item. But that is where the jaw gets fixed. It is strange that the invisible part is the part people are actually paying for.
"900 is not a lot" is a sentence I am going to have to sit with a while. My first instinct is to argue with you and I know that is not a good sign.
Thank you for the bit about surviving saying it. That helps more than the number does.
The escape route thing, yes. I did not realise I was doing it until someone pointed it out, that every time I say the price I also say "but if it's too much we can figure something out", and then somehow I am the one who figures it out. Usually by doing more work for the same money.
And you are right that the rework is not me being slow. That is the part I keep arguing with myself about at 1am. I tell myself a better artist would see the jaw the first time. But I think you are right, seeing it IS the skill, and the hours to get there were not free.
75 before materials is low, I know it. My problem is the jump from 75 to something honest feels like a jump off a cliff, and I am not sure I trust the net yet. But I am not adding the escape route next time. That I can promise.