Fiasco with a great portrait

[Chris Saper]

Julianne,

I have been in this situation, twice. Once where the commissioner was an adult, and once, a parent.

Let me preface this by saying, in retrospect, I should have declined both commissions, but did not...now I do.

My advice (?!) is to go ahead and take one more set of photos. If she does anything less than ecstatically shout, "Yes! This is it!", decline the work. Explain that a portrait is always part subject, part painter, and that not every painter and subject are the right match. Offer to help her find a painter that is a better suited to what she feels she wants.

If it comes to this, refund her money. Even if you have a signed contract that a fee is non-refundable, unless you have a year's work lined up, refund it anyway. It doesn't matter what price level you are at, because she is at the same purchasing level as her friends, and it is simply not worth the ill-will.

I now spend a lot of time up front with people to make sure I am the right painter for them; it has happened several times that I send them off with names of other artists to interview. I require people to spend time reviewing my source photos and the resulting paintings to make sure that they are fully comfortable with what to expect from me by way of likeness and style. I actually laugh with people and make them raise their right hands and repeat: "This is painting, not a photograph!"

Clearly, many, many portrait painters would be aghast at this approach, but it works fine for me.

P.S. This is why I have in place a three-part payment system: a fee at the time of photos (absolutely non-refundable) 50% down at time of decision about the content and size (also non-refundable); however, at this point they know what they are getting into. If they decide not to go forward, I have been compensated for my time in taking the photos, and there would be no hard feelings. Then the balance upon happy delivery. I have never had the situation (since the intial two I've mentioned) of having a painting rejected. It's bound to happen someday, but at least I do everything within my ability to spot a problem up front.

[Rebecca Willoughby]

Julianne,

I had a request once from a woman who wanted me to do her portrait for her husband for his birthday. After taking the reference photos, this lady decided that she was too big in the photos. She wanted me to paint her 30 pounds lighter. I explained to her that I don't "make-up" any of the information in my portraits. She said ok and I assumed that she had come to grips with her perceived weight problem.

She called back a couple of days later and asked if I could maybe use someone else's body and her face from 10 years ago stating that she had lots of professional portraits from which I could work.

Again I declined. At this time she huffed that she was just trying to help me in the first place and that I must not need the money very badly.

I was as polite as I could be and refunded her deposit (I charge 40%). Now, I know that this is obviously a situation that surely everyone would turn down, right? Wrong. Another portrait artist is currently completing the portrait as we speak! Thankfully it will have his name on it and not mine!

I always feel it is best to cut the strings and minimize your losses. You never know how many people will see that work and assume that you can't do your job because it doesn't look anything like the person it is supposed to be! In this business our word of mouth reputation makes or breaks us, so being very polite in your rejection is very important, at least in my humble opinion.

Rebecca

[Julianne Lowman]

The client came back from her holiday trip with jet black hair! Quite the contrast from the frosted blonde I painted in the portrait. Anyway, I rescheduled a new photo shoot letting her know that she could pick out the pose I would paint. She canceled the shoot 2 hours prior to my arriving at her home. I don't think this client will ever allow me to re-paint her portrait, and I will be more than happy to accommodate her wishes!

Thanks all for the advice! I've learned a GREAT deal from this one!

[Mari DeRuntz]

If a client can't decide who they are, how can they expect us to paint them, unless they're willing to look at it as capturing a moment of their changing life.

This one just seems very neurotic.