Charged a client €3800 for a portrait and the frame cost me €700 before I even started
I've done this three times now and I keep doing it. A client says they want the best, gold leaf, a hand-carved frame, the real thing, and I nod along because yes, that is what I want to make too. Then I order the frame from a specialist in Avignon who does nothing else, and I'm already €700 in before I've touched a brush to linen.
The portrait itself took about six weeks, off and on, between teaching and the daughter's schedule. When I calculated my hourly rate after the frame, the stretcher, the materials, the varnish, it came to about €11.50 an hour. My daughter makes more babysitting.
I know I should charge separately for the frame. I know I should quote the whole thing upfront with a deposit that covers materials. But there's something in me that wants the final price to just be the price, like the frame is part of the painting, not a line item. Stupid, probably. The client would never know the difference.
Anyone else just bad at separating what you make from what you need to make it?
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This is the thing that never gets talked about in art school. They teach you how to think about the work but not how to price the frame.
I've had this exact realisation in printmaking, which is supposed to be the cheap medium. You do an edition of ten, you factor in the plate wear, the paper cost, the proofing, the studio time, and then someone says "oh so you just print the same thing ten times" and you want to explain that no, each one is individually pulled and inked and the editioning alone takes weeks. But you don't, because you're tired and you already know the math doesn't add up.
The frame story hit. €700 before you've even begun. That's not materials, that's faith.
Art school doesn't teach pricing because most of the faculty never had to make a living at it. They had grants or spouses with real jobs.
The frame thing though -- that's a separate problem. You're buying the materials you want to use instead of the ones the job calls for. A 700 euro frame for a portrait that's billing at 3800 means the frame ate almost 20% before you touched anything. That ratio's off. On a commission that size the frame should be 10 percent, maybe 12. Or you build it into the quote line item so the client sees it. If they want gold leaf and hand-carved, they pay for gold leaf and hand-carved. You don't eat the frame and then call the remainder your fee.
I learned that the hard way thirty years ago with a stone base that cost more than I charged for the whole piece. Never again. Now I price every component separately and the client approves each one. If they balk, they didn't want it that bad.
You're right about the ratio, I know it. But I've been burned before by cheaper frames, they arrive looking like gold spray paint on MDF and I can't put my name next to it. So I swing too far the other way.
The line item idea is good. I'd have to get over feeling like I'm nickel-and-diming the client on beauty, but that's my problem, not theirs.
The plate wear thing, people have no idea. They think once the plate is cut you just roll ink and pull prints forever. You say "edition of ten" and they hear "ten identical copies" when what you mean is ten carefully supervised births, each one slightly different.
I have a friend who does etchings and she says the same. Paper alone nearly kills her. And you can't charge what it's actually worth because then you're the snob who thinks their hobby should pay the rent.
The frame thing especially gets me because it's the first thing the client sees. They walk in the room and the frame tells them what they're looking at before they even register the painting. But try explaining that to someone who thinks a frame is a frame.