Speed?

[Tricia Migdoll]

This is such an interesting topic.
I am slowing myself down in the beginning, to make sure I have everything right before i go in with too much paint. I am learning to do this more & more & not to forget to check my underpainting out for imperfections first.

However, in a 3 day workshop situation , you cannot do this. You have only three days & then your props are gone. So the opposite applies.
I find myself getting looser & less precious & sometimes the results are interesting, if not marvellous. The workshops help me to loosen up, but my tendency is to be slow & precious. Therefore, they are a good exercise.

I often wonder about the professionals. I notice that it seems to take them months to complete a painting, judging by the paintings they post, even though they work at it steadily each day.

Thanks Michele for bringing this up.

[Michele Rushworth]

I often wonder about the professionals. I notice that it seems to take them months to complete a painting, judging by the paintings they post, even though they work at it steadily each day.

It does take me months, but a lot of that is up front prep: discussions with the client, planning the photo shoot, (location, lighting, clothes, props), choosing the photos, fine tuning the composition, creating color studies, prepping the canvas, etc. In the case of the Governor's portrait, this sort of planning work has been going on, albeit not continuously, over the course of nine months, before the painting of the actual portrait began. That is, of course, an exception.

The actual painting takes me around 100 hours for a one figure portrait, three quarter length, with background, on average. Sometimes I can do a full figure portrait in 80 painting hours, sometimes a more difficult three quarter can take 150 hours. There are also a few days of follow up work involved too. (Delivery, possible tweaks that the client might request, billing, thank you cards, etc.) If there's an unveiling party that can take a lot of time to help plan, too.

In addition to that there's marketing which takes up about 25% of my time. There's admin time (doing quarterly and annual taxes, buying supplies, organizing my studio, etc.) which takes up another 5 to 10% of my time over the course of a year.

All told, then, the amount of work time I spend putting brush to canvas for the actual commissioned portrait is probably no more than half my working hours.

[Carol Norton]

Michelle, your response to this thread was really clarifying to me as a freshman in art as a business Thank you.

Artists frequently are asked the question, "How long did it take to paint that?". One of my teachers said that he responds with "30 years". Answers of 100 hours to a CLIENT necessarily couldn't include all of those components that you listed. They just want to know the time it took from when your brush first touched the canvas until the final stroke. Listing all the necessary planning stages, evaluating compositions, obtaining resource photos, business, marketing, etc. are the tip of the iceberg. Added to that are the untold, ongoing hours spent learning and absorbing information gathered from multiple sources such as workshops, books, videos and, of course, The Forum. How about just painting paintings that either work or don't work - "The burn pile" paintings, Bill Whitaker called them in his workshop. A $4500 portrait that took 100 hours of painting time, adding in all the necessary steps that go into the final project could be....just a minute...let me get out the caluculator, ...below minimum wage? It must be LOVE.

[Terri Ficenec]

Michele, thanks for starting this thread! It's got me to thinking about this question and how I work... and what's more effective/efficient.

When am being smart I work more slowly and deliberately as a painting is approaching completion --once have gotten the essentials and likeness in place and am to the stage of 'tweaking'-- and things can come along fairly quickly. Slowly and deliberately means spending a fair amount of time studying what's already there, comparing to references, and making lists of what little things want adjustment, then going in, fixing those things and knocking them off the list. If I'm being not so smart and don't spend the time studying and deciding what really needs doing, but go in directly with a brush and tool around just generally 'fixing' things I can spend literally days (don't laugh!) reworking things and accomplishing virtually nothing (pictures taken before and after can be hard to tell which is which) or, worse --can be progressing backwards where 'before' looks better than 'after'! (Uh-oh)

Very rarely, there might be something I've procrastinated on and left 'til then end that might come together very quickly if am smart enough to have at it, then leave it alone. (Leaving things alone when they should be done is the hard part for me! )

[Margaret Suddeth]

This is such a great question to contemplate! I've enjoyed reading the responses too.

I also hate that question, "How long does it take you to paint something like that?" My answer (which is the truth) is, "I don't know I don't track how long I take on a particular painting." I guess the reason is very much akin to what Carol wrote about Bill Whitaker's quote. Who wants to trivialize their work down to price per hour?

I believe I work at my best somewhere in between. Either too fast or two slow I find myself tensing up--not a way to produce an outcome I'm happy with! When I'm fast it may because I'm pressed for time; too slow and I may not be sure of what I'm doing. In between, I'm confident, relaxed, in the groove so to speak.

[Anthony Emmolo]

I enjoy working fast with outdoor watercolors and sketches. China is filled with interesting characters, especially in the summers. I spend a lot of time in the streets painting older men playing cards in the street. Old sofas are thrown out and left on the sidewalks so older men congregate and play games or just watch. Some street corners may have as few as two or three men sitting together, and some may have as many as six or seven games going with a total of fifty people including gamers and viewers. Sitting on curbs, leaning on each other, one foot on a sofa, leaning over bicycles, the poses are limitless. With the hot summer months here, men often go without a shirt on, or with their T-shirts rolled up around their chests. Then, for the finishing touch on a sketch that would make the average American or European look on with interest, the men with their pant legs rolled up around their thighs in an effort to cool down.

I finally got a digital camera, and would like to send photos of some sketches, I need now to learn how to download images or whatever else may pertain to the job of sending images to the forum.

Enjoy,
Anthony