I priced a portrait by how much I liked the face. That was the whole system.

Someone asked me yesterday what my price list is and I had to say out loud that I don't have one, and I have been taking portrait commissions for three years.

What I have is this: I look at the reference photo, I decide how hard the face is going to be, and I say a number. Soft round face with good light, 350 zł. Sharp bones, tricky eyes, four hours just on the nose, 600 zł. It is not a price list, it is an anxiety reading. And it has been mostly fine, which is the worst part, because it means I never had to fix it.

Then in March I did two pastels the same size, both A3 on grey Canson, both heads. One was a man I liked, easy face, done in two evenings. 350 zł. The other was a woman with very dark skin in a strong window light, and I fought with the values for a week and a half, maybe eleven hours total, and I charged her 400. So I made less per hour on the harder one. Of course I did. The harder ones are the ones I am scared to put a number on.

I am not writing this to ask what to charge, I know what the answer is, I want to raise it and I am just not doing it. I am writing it because saying it here is the closest I get to doing anything about it. If I put 500 zł on my page tomorrow I think my hands would shake a bit while typing it.

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Dani Okafor·1h

The "it has been mostly fine, which is the worst part" line is the whole thing honestly. I do the exact same with watercolor commissions, like, oh this one's a soft jaw and good light, easy, and then it takes me six hours because actually the light was lying to me. The anxiety reading thing is so real, I think I've been quietly charging for how nervous I am and calling it a price.

But also, both A3 pastels on the same paper and the same size and you ended up with different numbers? That's not a pricing problem, that's a you-did-more-work problem, and those are genuinely different things. Did the second one take longer, or did it just feel harder while you were in it? Because I've noticed those aren't always the same and I honestly can't tell which one I should be charging for.

Karen Wessel·1h

The "dim is harder, not easier" thing is so true and I never put words to it before. I did a little still life last winter with a lamp on one side and I thought, easy, one light source, and I redid those pears four times because the shadow just kept going muddy on me.

For what it's worth on seeing it before you say the number, the only thing that's helped me is doing a quick value sketch off the photo first, like 10 minutes of grey markers. If it looks flat in the sketch it'll fight me in paint and I bump the quote up before I open my mouth. Not foolproof, I still get it wrong, but it stops the worst surprises. Do you sketch it out first or do you go straight from the photo?

Kasia NowakOP·39m

The value sketch with grey markers, that is a good idea and slightly annoying that I did not think of it. Ten minutes to find out if the face is actually there before I say a number out loud. I am going to try it and probably discover that half the portraits I quoted cheap were flat the whole time.

The pears. Four times. I believe you. One light source sounds like it should be the easy version and then the shadow sits there like grey soup and you cannot get the core of it dark enough without killing the whole thing.

Also your point about it being not foolproof is the honest part. At least when I get it wrong after the sketch I will know it is my eye and not just that I never looked.

Kasia NowakOP·1h

The light was lying to me. Yes. Exactly that. You think it is soft and it is just dim, and dim is harder, not easier, and I have no idea how to see that before I say the number.

And you are right that it is two different things, which is a thing I have been avoiding looking at. The two A3 pastels in March were the same size and paper and I quoted one of them 400 and the other 700, and when they were both done I sat with them and could not honestly say the 700 one was worth 300 more. What I could say is that I was more frightened the whole way through it. So I charged her for my fear, same as you say, and she paid it, and I felt bad for a week.

The part I cannot solve: if I stop pricing by nerves, what is left. The hours? I am slow. I do not want to bill people for me being slow.

Niall Doherty·2h

The anxiety reading bit got me. I've been pulling linocut editions for years and I still price the odd commission by squinting at the photo and going "ah, that's a four-hundred-euro face on it." Which is grand until you get two of them side by side and realise you've charged one punter half what you charged the other for the same graft.

Thing is, the number you actually want to land on isn't the face, it's the hours, and you only find that out halfway through when the tricky eyes ate your whole Tuesday. So you're pricing blind and hoping. I've started writing the real hours down after the fact, not to change the price, just to see the pattern, and it's a sobering aul read. Good on you for saying it out loud though, most of us just mutter about it at the kitchen table.

Kasia NowakOP·1h

Writing the real hours down after the fact is the part I keep avoiding, because then I would have to look at the number and admit the four-hour nose was really nine hours. The "four-hundred-euro face" made me laugh, and then wince, because I know exactly that squint. Two punters, same graft, half the price. Grim.

Do you have a threshold where you just refuse? I keep thinking I should say no to the faces I can already tell will eat me alive, but those are the ones I secretly want to paint, so I say yes and then resent the number I gave.