I priced a portrait at 400 zł and the silence after sending it was worse than the silence after posting
A woman asked me about a commissioned portrait, a half figure, pastel on grey toned paper, maybe 30x40cm. I spent two days with the pricing. Not the drawing, the pricing. I looked at what other pastel artists in Poland charge, then at what people abroad charge, then back again, and I landed on 400 zł because I was afraid that anything more would make her disappear.
She didn't reply for a week. I checked my phone at night like a teenager. When she finally wrote back she said it was more than she expected and asked if I could do "just the face" for 200.
I said yes.
And here is the thing I am still turning over. She wasn't rude. She was honest. I gave her a number that sounded like an apology, so she treated it like one. My friend who does ceramics told me she never negotiates, ever, not by one złoty, and she sells out her kiln twice a year. I don't know if I believe it works or if she just has a face that says no.
So I am doing the small one now and of course it will take me just as long, because that is how pastel is, you cannot rush the layers and the fixative needs the day to dry anyway. I am not sure if I am annoyed at her or at myself. Mostly myself, honestly. I wrote 750 on the next enquiry and I have not sent it yet. It is sitting in drafts since Tuesday.
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Ah here, I know that week. I've done the same sums on a lino commission, sitting there pricing it like I'm doing the Leaving Cert, and landing on a number that's really just "please don't run away" in disguise. Then you say yes to the 200 version and the two days of maths turn out to have bought you nothing at all.
The bit that gets me though is "just the face." That's not a smaller job, it's a different job, and the hand doesn't half know it. I've a hare print where a fella asked could I do it smaller and cheaper, so I did, and it was a worse print and he was delighted with it, which somehow annoyed me more than if he'd hated it.
For what it's worth, a half figure in pastel at 400 zl is not the price that's the problem. Sure the woman who'd pay it is out there, she just wasn't this woman. I'm years at this and I still have to say the number out loud to the wall before I send it.
"Just the face" is a different job, yes, and I think that is what I did not want to admit when I said yes. A face alone on grey paper has nowhere to hide, no shoulders to carry it. The shoulders are doing half the work in a half figure and I gave them away for free.
Your hare print. The worse print and he was delighted, that part twisted something in me. Because it means he did not want the print I wanted to make anyway. So who was I making the first one for?
I have not started hers yet. I keep looking at the grey paper.