Someone recently contacted me via Instagram to commission me to draw his black labrador. He sent over a photograph for me to work from and also pointed out a previous piece of my work he had seen on my account to specify the style he wanted. I have standard prices for these commissions now in A4 and A5 sizes so I was confident with the amounts I was quoting. After deciding on a size he was happy to pay the price I stated, we made an agreement on timescale and said I would be in touch when it was complete.
I completed the commission over two sittings. I took advice from the easter program workshops which suggested to keep a record of actual time spent to look back on when trying to price up future commissions. As the customer lived not far from my hometown we agreed that he could collect the work from my house at no extra cost while I was home for Easter. I am starting to find that a lot of people prefer to avoid posting work because they are worried about damage, this might be something I need to think about if I am trying to reach a wider audience who can’t pick up the work in person.
Everything went very smoothy and he was very happy with the work, I also included a couple of business cards and a postcard in the envelope with the hope that he would take a look at my work online (beyond Instagram) and potentially pass on a business card to someone else if they ever asked about the portrait.
I am finding that doing these portraits or mini-commissions are a good way for me to make a bit of extra money and at the moment these are conveniently falling at my feet quite nicely which means I can do them alongside my uni projects. However, I feel like now is the time to start advertising that I am doing this so maybe the quantity of work I am getting will increase for summer time which is when I will have more time to do them.
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