I quoted 1,200 for a portrait head and the woman said "that's very reasonable" so fast I've been angry at myself since Tuesday
The sitting was Tuesday. Charcoal study first, then a small oil head, 25 by 33, nothing grand. I gave her 1,200 and she said yes before I finished the sentence, and I knew immediately I'd left money on the table. Not because she's rich, she isn't especially. Because she didn't blink.
I've been doing this for years and I still do it. I add up the linen, the ground, the pigment, the sittings, and then at the end I take the number and quietly shave it, because I'm afraid of the silence after I say it out loud. My teacher in the atelier used to say a price is a statement about the work, not about you. Fine in theory. In practice I hear my own voice go up at the end like I'm asking permission.
Two weeks ago I sold a small still life, three lemons and a knife on a grey cloth, to a man who runs a restaurant on Rue Sainte-Catherine. 900. He put it straight on the wall and it looked correct there, and I thought, that was the right number, and it surprised me how much I needed to feel that once.
So the portrait head. She's coming back Thursday for the second sitting and I've decided I'm not going to reopen the price, that would be grotesque. But I've written 1,600 on a card and taped it inside the lid of my pochade box where I have to look at it every time I open it.
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The no-blink is the thing that gets you. I've done the same dance at markets for years, where you add up the lino, the paper, the hours hunched over the block, and then some voice in your head goes "sure would anyone pay that" and you knock fifty off before the words are even out. The ones who flinch are easy, you shrug and move on. It's the quick yes that keeps you up, because it means you bid against yourself and lost.
The only thing that actually fixed it for me, and it took longer than I'd like to admit, was deciding the number before the person ever walks in the door. No shaving it in the moment. If the mouth opens and the number falls out the same every time, the silence after it stops being frightening, it's just a pause.
1200 for a charcoal study and a small oil head sounds like you were already being decent to her. Graft like that, the sittings alone. Anyway, you've the number for next time now, and the next one won't blink either if you don't.
Deciding the number before they walk in is right, but I'd say the harder half is deciding it before you meet them. I used to fix a figure in the studio and lose it the moment someone stood in front of the work being enthusiastic. The price got attached to the person instead of the thing, and then of course it wobbled.
The quick yes is not a loss, by the way. She said 1,200 was reasonable because it was. You just found out your floor was her ceiling, which is uncomfortable information and also the only way to ever learn where the real number lives. Next head, start higher and see if the silence comes. It usually doesn't.
"The price got attached to the person instead of the thing." Yes. That's the sentence I needed and I didn't have it on Tuesday. Because it's true, I wasn't pricing the head, I was pricing her face while she was smiling at me, and the two are not the same number.
So how do you actually do it, the before-you-meet-them part? Do you write it down somewhere they can't see, or is it just decided in the head and you hold it? I ask because I have decided a number in the studio a hundred times and it has never once survived a warm person across a table.
And I take the point about the floor and the ceiling. Uncomfortable information, c'est ça. The thing is it means I've been charging the same for years and calling it consistency.
"Bid against yourself and lost" is exactly it. And the lino and the paper, yes, that's the same arithmetic I do, and it never saves you, does it, because the number was never really about the materials.
Deciding it before they walk in. That's the part I resist, and I'm not sure why, except that alone in the studio with the number there's no one to be brave in front of, so I shave it there instead. I'll try it. 1,200 was decided in the room, with her looking at me, and that is a bad place to make a decision.