Commission a Portrait Painting, by Vincent Keeling
Thanks for thinking of me in terms of commissioning a portrait. I have some samples of my portrait work below if you want to scroll down the page, or indeed you can view my range of my previous famous face portraits by clicking on the Artwork menu above.
Ok then, I’m sure you’ll have a number of questions if you are considering getting a portrait done, so I’ll try my best to anticipate and answer a few of them here.
The first thing is that I work in solely in oil on canvas. Next, I generally work from photos rather than from life, although I am open to discussing the option of the subject of the portrait sitting for me in person. Generally though, people email me photos of loved ones, friends or family members they would like me to paint, although because I’ve painted quite a few famous faces I’m often asked to paint Bruce Springsteen or Leonard Cohen or the like, who are also loved ones of a sort.
Portrait of Bruce Springsteen, 40x40cm oil on linen
Another common question relates to time, and how long will a commission likely take?
The quick answer is that for small and simple black and white or colour portraits we would be talking 3 to 4 weeks unvarnished or 8 to 12 weeks varnished. This would be for let’s say something around a 30x30cm canvas and a simple single head and shoulders portrait. As things start getting larger or more complicated we’d have to start adding weeks. More on what adds to a portrait’s complexity and ideas for keeping it simple later. Before we get to that we have another issue to cover.
Why is it important to varnish an oil painting?
Well the varnish serves a few significant roles with an oil painting: Firstly it provides a protective coating to keep your painting safe, and secondly it evens out all the tones and colours with a general gloss. Otherwise oil paintings have this pesky tendency to dry a bit patchy and uneven as the oil sinks into the layers below. Some artists don’t mind this, but for me a painting always looks at its best when the varnish goes on, so ideally we’d be planning well ahead of time.
Now what if you need the painting quickly, but you also want your painting protected and enhanced by a nice varnish?
This can be done, for you always have the option of getting the painting back to me at a later date and I’d be happy to varnish it for you. Or indeed, if it’s a gift then be sure to let the recipient know it’s a service I’ll happily provide at no extra cost. However, this would mean dropping it back to me and collecting it. Or if you live further afield it could be a case shipping it back and forth. Or perhaps another option might be to seek out some obliging artist, framer or handyman you trust to carry out this specialist task.
So what about the issue of cost?
Of course, this will depend on size and complexity of the portrait commission, but I will try to give you some helpful information below and indeed some guide prices. First of all, for the moment at least I’m going pitch my Famous Face portrait commissions at a lower rate than personal ones. There are a few reasons for this, but a big one is that I tend to make a little side income from my Famous Face prints, which isn’t of course possible on personal commissions.
The next thing to note is that it might surprise you to hear that my preference for commissions is actually for smaller simpler ones, rather than larger more complex commissions. Its easier to balance smaller portraits with all my own creative work that I’m juggling, and also they tend to be more financially viable for me, as complex ones tend to have a life of their own as days run into weeks or months.
So what do I mean by keeping the portrait simple and more affordable?
Well, here are a few examples that might give you an idea of what I’m talking about beginning with a little famous face portrait I did of Amy Winehouse a few years back.
This was painted on a small scale at 30x30cm; it’s black and white rather than full colour, which is always an easier proposition; it’s a simple head and shoulders with no hands or minimal clothing to contend with; there’s also no complicated background to spend days on, and perhaps an obvious one, it’s a single, rather than a multiple portrait. The only thing on this painting that did take a little extra effort was the tattoo on Amy’s arm, but in truth that was kind of fun to paint, and I just would have been wrong to leave Amy without it.
Ok, so I'm going to give you another example of a simple and affordable portrait with this one of David Bowie below and then I'll give you those much anticipated guide prices.
FAMOUS FACE COMMISSIONS
Black & White - Simple head & shoulder single portraits
25x30cm - 450 Euro
30x30cm - 550 Euro
30x40cm - 650 Euro
40x40cm - 750 Euro
35x45cm - 750 Euro
40x50cm - 850 Euro
50x50cm - 950 Euro
FAMOUS FACE COMMISSIONS
Colour- Simple head & shoulder single portraits
25x30cm - 540 Euro
30x30cm - 610 Euro
30x40cm - 750 Euro
40x40cm - 925 Euro
35x45cm - 915 Euro
40x50cm - 1095 Euro
50x50cm - 1295 Euro
And now below I'll give you guide prices for Simple Personal Commissions.
Again this painting above, represents a an example of a simple portrait with little fuss or detail besides that actual face.
Another question you might have is, what is the relationship of pricing of my famous face portraits, personal portraits, and my general painting prices?
And as I mentioned earlier the personal commissions even the simple ones will be pitched at slightly higher prices than the famous faces, which always have that nice print income to help pay for canvases and tubes of paint. In saying that I did strive to keep the prices for the simple black and white personal commissions in line with my general painting prices. However, the portraits in colour are priced a bit higher again, to reflect both the extra time involved in the mixing of colour flesh tones, and to reflect the inherent challenges of portraiture itself where slow and careful accuracy is crucial to capture a likeness. A few stray lines in a rose or landscape painting, can easily go unnoticed, but a portrait can succeed or fail on such small margins. Thus, it's a little more time and a little more cost.
PERSONAL PORTRAIT COMMISSIONS
Black & White - Simple head & shoulder single portraits
25x30cm - 540 Euro
30x30cm - 610 Euro
30x40cm - 750 Euro
40x40cm - 925 Euro
35x45cm - 915 Euro
40x50cm - 1095 Euro
50x50cm - 1295 Euro
Colour - Simple head & shoulder single portraits
25x30cm - 650 Euro
30x30cm - 725 Euro
30x40cm - 900 Euro
40x40cm - 1125 Euro
35x45cm - 1100 Euro
40x50cm - 1325 Euro
50x50cm - 1550 Euro
Ok, so this should give you a good idea of ball park prices if we're going for simple portrait commissions where almost all the focus is on the face. However, what I'm going to start showing below is examples of where that simplicity transitions into complexity, which adds up to more days of painting for me, and inevitably more cost for you. Sorry about that, but I've got bills to pay too, and need a little certainty when it comes to income, especially with commission work.
Ok, lets begin by looking an example from my famous faces where there were a few obvious extras details to contend with.
In this commission of Damien Dempsey there was a little extra work in the shirt and then the hand, but a lot of extra work in the details around the guitar and microphone. This actually added 4 or 5 extra days for me, so the baseline price of 950 Euro for a black and white 50x50cm canvas would become closer to 1400 or 1500 Euro. However, it would be very easy to crop this to exclude much of these extras details and maybe even keep it to a smaller size to again reduce expense. Again I'm happy to keep it simple. Also another option is for me to purposely keep the details on the edges a bit loose and painterly and speed things up.
Now we're upping the complexity level to a very high level with this double portrait of Willie Nelson and Ray Charles. There is even extra details in the microphone, and some complex fabrics and clothing to deal with, but the big one is obviously that within a relatively small canvas 35x45cm, we have two colour portraits to paint. If this was a single colour famous face portrait my baseline price would be 1100 Euro, however, a double portrait like this would almost take twice as much time, and thus the price would have to reflect this at 2,000 Euro or thereabouts.
Ok, I think I've probably explained enough about how those extra details or complexities all lead to extra days and weeks of work, and thus cost. My intention was to try be as transparent as possible so you didn't get any surprises with a quote I might give. And also to try explain how there are ways to keep things simple and a lot more affordable. Thus, if you do get in touch and the budget is an issue as it is for many of us, it would be great to hear what you were thinking of spending, maybe using my baseline prices around simple portraits per size as a guide, and then we can figure it out and look at options to make it work for both of us.
Now of course, if the priority is less concerned about budget or time, and a more ambitious portrait project is the main thing, then of course I'm happy to discuss that too.
I'll attach more examples of my work below to give you a sense of the work I've done over the years.
Thanks for reading, Vincent Keeling - vincentkeeling@gmail.com
Sepia toned portrait of a couple, from an old photograph, taken in a photo booth. 18x14 inches, oil on canvas.
A copy of John Singer Sargent's wonderful portrait of Lady Agnew, by Vincent Keeling
Detail of a portrait commission of a lovely young Tanzanian girl hugging her doll. 20x16 inches, oil on canvas.
Pet portrait of Rufus, the dog. 30x30cm, oil on canvas, by Vincent Keeling
More information on PET PORTRAITS
Equestrian portrait of the racehorse, Lambro. 20x16 inches, oil on canvas, by Vincent Keeling
Feel free to email me here with any enquires, and no harm to send on a photo of the image you want painted, if you have it handy, as this is the only way I can give a firm quote. Oh yeah, and brilliant to know if you're trying to keep within a size and budget based around my guide prices above, as there might be ways to crop the image to try make this happen for you.
Thanks and hope to hear from you soon!
Vincent Keeling
Email: vincentkeeling@gmail.com
Click below if you would like to see the full catalogue of previous
Famous Portrait Paintings, by Vincent Keeling