Painting on commission

Whether it is a portrait, a landscape, a still life, or a combination: before I start designing and painting, a few questions are on the table. You do not have to answer them alone — that is what the conversations beforehand are for — but it helps to have thought about them already.

• Who or what is in it

  For a portrait: one person, a couple, or a whole family. With more than one sitter it is not only more work, but above all the relationships between them: who looks at whom, who stands in front, what story that tells. In a still life it is the objects themselves that carry the story.

• Where it takes place

  A plain background puts every bit of attention on the face and sits in any interior. But much of my work comes out of the landscape, and a painting set in a place that belongs to someone often says more. Objects do the same: an instrument, a dog, fitting clothes.

• How large it becomes

  The size follows from the first two choices and, of course, from where it will hang. A head-and-shoulders portrait may stay small and often gains strength that way. If you want someone full-length, a landscape, or several people in a setting, a larger format is often a condition.

1. 01

   First conversation

   We meet, in the studio in Arnhem or at a location of your choosing. You tell me about the person, place or object you want painted, and together we arrive at an idea: the setting, the mood, the size, and the place in the house where it will eventually hang. That last one decides more than you would think.

2. 02

   Photo session

   I come to the place we chose at a fine moment of the day and photograph at length. For a portrait that yields more than the photographs alone: I get to know the person behind the portrait. If only existing photographs are available, of someone who is no longer here for instance, we look together at what is possible with them.

3. 03

   Study and approval

   From that material I make a study in which composition, colour and the fall of light are already settled. You see it before a canvas is stretched. This is the moment to steer: a posture that is off or a background that distracts, I can change here in an afternoon and not later.

4. 04

   Painting

   After your approval the craft work starts. Layer over layer, with drying time in between; count on several months. If you would like it, I invite you to the studio to see it along the way, so that the finished painting is not a complete surprise.

5. 05

   Delivery

   The painting is varnished and can then go to the framer. I am glad to think along about the frame, since it belongs to the work.

A commissioned painting costs time — months, a good part of it spent waiting for a layer to dry enough for the next. That makes it an expensive thing, and I would rather keep that transparent. What a commission costs exactly depends on three things.

Size

The largest factor. A bigger canvas is not only more surface, but more layers and more detail that has to hold up at that scale.

Number of sitters

In a portrait, every additional person asks for its own build-up, and on top of that a composition that holds the whole together.

Setting

A plain background goes considerably faster than an interior, a landscape, or clothing with a lot of fabric in it. A dog or an instrument counts just as much.

By way of indication, prices including VAT and excluding the frame, for the sizes asked for most often:

Payment terms

After the first conversation I know enough for a concrete quotation: one price and a timeline by which it will be finished. On approval a deposit of 30 per cent follows, which also lets me buy the materials and begin photographing, designing and painting. Along the way there can be an interim viewing if you would like one. Once the canvas has been delivered entirely to your satisfaction, the remaining 70 per cent follows.