Mike's Story

Mike called and wanted a portrait done in oils of he and his wife for the tenth anniversary of the day they met. He wanted to know the cost. He was told that portrait oil paintings were done at a price of $1000 per head (bust-size) on a 16 x 24 canvas and three months were needed for completion.

Then he gave more of a description of what he had in mind. He said that he and his wife had met in Maryland, that he had pictures of them when they were each at about kindergarten age, wanted these heads (see pictures below) put on the bodies of these two other children, wanted the Maryland flag put on the picture, wanted the children on a dock out at the edge of the bay and possibly a sailboat on the bay. Since the Anniversary was in two weeks and an oil couldn't be done and properly dried in that length of time, we came up with an alternate project. We would collage them on the computer at a by-the-hour rate, then have them printed out in time for their Anniversary and we could have the print put on canvas and do the oil painting later. This way Teresa could have input if she wanted any changes made, before we had the print fixed onto canvas for the oil painting. Also, the final painting would not cost nearly as much as an original oil painting.

This is what we came up with:

It took about 12 hours to do this @ $35 per hour, it came to $420, plus a printing and laminating cost of 3 copies, 14x17 of 29.62, came to 449.62 . So we are basing our price at $100 per picture sent in and hoping that this price will cover the cost of resizing, retouching and blending into a scene.

Click here to see Mike's oil painting, Click here to see how to order or Click here to go to the home page.