The friends-and-family discount that became free lessons
A friend from years ago asked me to paint her daughter's portrait for her 18th. I said yes at €600, already half what I'd charge a stranger for a 50x60cm oil on linen. She's a friend, fine.
Then the emails started. "Could you do it from these five photos instead?" "Actually she's wearing a different dress now, can you change the colour?" "Her hair is shorter than that photo shows." "My mother thinks the background should be lighter."
I repainted the face from new reference, adjusted the dress twice, scraped and repainted the background. All told I probably spent close to 25 hours on a painting that should have taken maybe 12. At my usual hourly rate for commissioned work that comes out to about €24 an hour. My assistant, who stretches canvases, makes €16. So I earned roughly the same as the person who stretches my canvases, for a job that required twenty years of training.
The friend was happy. The daughter cried when she saw it. Beautiful moment. I don't regret it exactly. But I sat down afterwards and did the math and realised I'd basically given her a €1,200 painting plus a free workshop in how to manage an artist. Never again without a contract that says: one reference, one revision, anything beyond that is a new fee.
Curious if anyone else has a number attached to the "learning experience" of a commission that ran away from you.
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Oh I feel this in my bones. The friends-and-family discount always comes with invisible extra hours nobody accounts for.
€600 for 25 hours, that's €24 an hour before materials. Less than a plumber, and you're working in oil on linen. The thing is, she probably thinks she's being reasonable. Five photos, a dress change, a mother's opinion, it's all just "small adjustments" to someone who's never held a brush. They don't see the labour in it.
I've got a rule now after being burned similarly: friends get a small discount or a payment plan, but the same terms and the same number of revisions written down. Saved me a few relationships, honestly. €600 is cheap enough to feel taken for granted and expensive enough to resent. Worst spot to be in.
Exactly. She's not malicious, she just has no framework for what the work actually is. To her, changing a dress colour is like asking someone to pick a different filter. She doesn't see the scraping, the dry time, the rebuilding of the form from scratch.
I admire your discipline with the terms and revisions. I think I'd add one thing, put the revision limit in writing before you start. Even with friends. Especially with friends, because otherwise you're enforcing it retroactively and that's when it gets awkward.