Commissioned Art

Why Is It So Expensive?

Commissioned art. Every artist has their own method and price varies based on size of the finished product, materials used, color vs black and white, etc. For each added extra, the price goes up. But why is it so costly? Is art really worth the price? Perhaps the question should really be…is a person’s time and work really worth the price?

Let’s break things down as simply as possible. A typical commissioned art piece for me consists of an 8”x10” photorealistic black and white pencil portrait takes me roughly 2-3 weeks to complete. Let’s just say 2 weeks, or 80 hours, like a normal 9-5 work week. I charge $250 to stay competitive with other online artists doing similar work. If you do the math, that $250 for 80 hours’ worth of work breaks down to a whopping $6.25 an hour. Seriously? That’s not even minimum wage these days.

Still, people damn near choke when I give them the basic price list. If I charged what I get hourly at my regular job, the price would be 3-4 times as much. But when it comes to something like art, you must also consider expertise. You’re not just paying for a product, but also the skill and experience of the artist.

It’s the difference between hiring a day laborer outside of your local Home Depot (remember them?) to do your home plumbing or electrical versus hiring a certified or licensed worker to do the job. Yes, the jack of all trades is probably much cheaper, but are you certain that your house got wired properly and isn’t a fire hazard or that your toilet won’t flush when you run the garbage disposal?

Rocky – Background detail eliminated.

So what goes into figuring out my own price list? Well, as I mentioned above, I stay in the general range of other artists of the same caliber doing similar work just to be competitive. The client gives me a photo that I can work from and tells me the size that they’d like. As a general rule, I eliminate background detail and occasionally collars with lots of dangly tags and charms, limiting any extra detail to what the animal happens to be sitting or lying on. That’s my basic, standard price.

Zac – Background included per the client’s request.

If the background in the photo is requested to be included, then the price goes up a bit more. For example, in the portrait above, the client requested the background specifically because this cat was particularly fond of sitting on that railing to survey his territory.

Kazu – Custom background.

The highest price comes into play when the client requests a custom background. Why? Because custom backgrounds require more imagination, creativity, experimentation, designing, and planning to insert something that wasn’t there in the first place and something that will work with the position and personality of the animal. All of that adds up to expertise and time.

As I said in the beginning, each artist has their own method and breakdown of what determines how they price commissioned art. Hopefully this post gives you some idea of what goes into the cost and helps to alleviate the thinking that artists are charging exorbitant prices on a whim.

Interested in commissioning a portrait with me? Click here.