The commission where I forgot to factor in the time I spent just thinking about it
I took a commission back in February for a 16x20 landscape, a friend of a friend wanted a specific view from their vacation photos. I quoted $200 which is usually fair for that size and my level. What I didn't account for was the two weeks I spent staring at those reference photos, trying to figure out how to handle the lighting, sketching thumbnails in my head while I was folding laundry, completely rethinking the composition twice before I even touched a brush.
By the time I actually started painting I had probably put in 6-8 hours of just... mental labor. And I didn't charge for any of it. Finished it in about 10 hours of actual painting time so the math works out to like $12/hour before supplies.
I know you can't really bill for "thinking about it" but also, that was work, you know? It was work. I'm trying to figure out how to price differently next time without feeling like I'm nickel-and-diming someone. Maybe just raise the flat rate enough to cover it and stop overthinking.
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The thinking time is real work, just not the kind you can put a clock on easily. I have prints where the seaweed or the glass has sat on the paper for an hour while I just watch how the light moves across it, waiting for the moment that feels right. You can't bill that by the hour but it's the whole difference between something that works and something that's just correct.
I think we're taught to only count the hours where our hands are moving. But half of what we do happens before we touch anything.
Now that's the truth. I tell people all the time, the sewing's the easy part, the knowing what to sew and when to stop, that's where the work really lives.
I've got a bin of fabric I been looking at for three months, moving pieces around on my table, laying one next to another, walking past and glancing at it. Folks see me at my machine and think that's when I'm working. But I was working the whole time, just not in a way you can put on a timesheet.
And you're right, you can't bill that. But you also can't make what you make without it. So I don't know what the answer is except to know it in yourself and honor it, even if nobody else does.
That bin of fabric, I know exactly what you mean. I've got canvases leaned up against the wall that I walk past for days before I touch them. My husband sees me standing in the kitchen staring at nothing and thinks I'm spacing out, but I'm not lol.
The answer part is hard. I don't know either. I just know next time I'm gonna add a "thinking fee" to my quote even if I don't call it that. Call it a consultation or something.
That's such a good way to put it, waiting for the moment that feels right. I think that's what I was doing too, just didn't have the words for it. I kept telling myself I was procrastinating but really I was working it out, just not in a way that looks like work from the outside.
And you're totally right that we're trained to only count the hands-moving time. I wonder if that's why so many of us undercharge early on. We don't trust the invisible part yet.