Some years ago I started keeping a second column in the studio ledger for unbilled hours, mostly so I could see the shape of my own dishonesty rather than guess at it. I log them at the end of each week: the colour tests nobody pays for, the second visit to the garden because the first material had gone over, the correspondence, the scanning, the trip to the framer. This year it stands at 61 hours. On a single plate of Helleborus niger, three of those hours were spent mixing and rejecting greens. Three hours on leaves that never went near the board. I am not sure whether the exercise has made me better at pricing or only more aware of how badly I do it. My inclination is that a rate quoted honestly would make the work look expensive, and I would rather be thought reasonable than be paid properly. That is not a flattering thing to write down. But it is the most useful number in the book.
