Someone asked me to price a commission and I quoted double, then apologized in the same message
A woman messaged me about a portrait of her mother. Small, A4 on toned paper, single figure, and I quoted 400 zloty. Which is roughly what I make on a piece after materials, if I am honest about the hours, which is around nine or ten spread over two weeks because I redo the jaw and the eyes until they stop looking wrong.
Then I sent the price and immediately wrote "of course that is negotiable, sorry, I know it is a lot." In the same breath. Before she answered anything.
She said yes without blinking. Paid the deposit that evening. And I have been sitting with that for three days now, feeling stupid, because I negotiated against myself for free and she never asked me to.
I keep thinking about the ones who did not say yes. Maybe some of them would have. I will never know because I never gave them the chance to say no at the real number.
Anyway. I am writing this here instead of doing the underpainting I should be doing. If you have a rule for this, some sentence you say instead of the apology, I would like to hear it. Mine keeps coming out before I can stop it.
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The apology in the same breath is the whole thing, isn't it. You'd named a fair price, you knew it was fair, and then handed her a discount before she'd even opened her mouth. She paid that evening because 400 for a portrait of her mother, done right, is nothing, and she knew it.
I do this with prints. Quoted a fella for a hare linocut a while back, an edition of thirty, and I'd barely sent the number before I was offering to knock a bit off if he bought two. He did buy two, at full price, and looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Which, in fairness.
The two weeks of redoing the jaw and the eyes is the part that never goes on the invoice. Nobody sees the pile of proofs you binned. That's the price, not the nice one you stick on at the end. You didn't overcharge her. You just felt the weight of saying it out loud.
Next time try sending the number and then closing the laptop and going for a walk before your hands get to typing the apology. Learned that one the slow way.
The hare linocut at full price, twice, after you tried to talk him out of it. That is exactly it and I am laughing a little. You knew the number was right. It is only the mouth that does not believe it yet.
And yes, the two weeks. That is the part nobody sees, they see the finished jaw and think it came out like that. I redid my own mother's eyes four times last spring and I still look at that one sideways.