Anniversary portraits
An anniversary portrait, worked backwards from the date
A painting for a specific day, which means the calendar decides the size, the composition and whether it is possible at all.
Anniversary commissions are the only ones where the date is fixed before the painting is designed. Everything else — size, how many people, how much detail — can move. The day cannot. So the first arithmetic is not about canvas at all: three to five weeks of painting, three to five business days in transit, and a mock-up within 24 hours of the photographs being accepted. Work backwards from the date and you have the last day you can order.
That arithmetic is usually kinder than people expect, and it is also unforgiving at the edges. A painting approved six weeks before the date is comfortable. One approved three weeks before it is possible with rush delivery at $90. One approved ten days before it is not possible at all, and the honest answer is a smaller canvas or a different gift.
Working backwards from the date
Take the date, subtract three to five business days for transit, subtract three to five weeks of painting, and subtract a few days for the mock-up to be looked at properly by two people rather than one. That is the order-by date. If the anniversary falls in late December, add a week, because everything moves more slowly then, including the postal system.
Rush delivery exists for the cases where the arithmetic has already gone wrong: three weeks including painting, for $90. It shortens the painting schedule, not the drying time, and it is only offered on sizes where the varnish will be sound when it ships.
What we cannot compress is the approval. If the mock-up sits unopened in somebody's inbox for five days, those five days come out of the painting. This is the single most common reason an anniversary painting arrives late, and it has nothing to do with the studio.
Which year of the marriage
The second decision is which faces. An anniversary portrait can be painted from the wedding photographs, from a good photograph taken last summer, or from a combination — the couple as they are now, with the dress and the suit from the day. Each choice says something different, and the right one is usually obvious once somebody says it out loud.
Twenty-five years on, most couples want the present version. They see each other every day and they know what they look like; a painting of two twenty-four-year-olds is a nice object but it is not a portrait of the marriage. The exception is the couple who never had a good wedding photograph, which is more common than people admit, especially for weddings before the 1990s.
If the painting is a surprise, the photographs have to be collected without asking. That usually means a sibling, a best friend or an adult child doing the collecting, and it means accepting that the photographs will be imperfect — a phone snap from a barbecue is fine, provided the faces are sharp and the light is not behind them.
The surprise, and the risk in it
Surprises work, with one rule: the mock-up goes to the organiser only, and the person being painted never sees it. That keeps the secret and still gives somebody the chance to say the composition is wrong before it is painted. We will not contact the subject, and we will not post progress photographs anywhere public until you say the gift has been given.
The risk is not really the secret, it is the choice. Somebody who commissions a portrait of their parents as a surprise is guessing at what those parents want on their wall, and the guess is sometimes wrong — a couple who have spent forty years avoiding being photographed may not want a large canvas of themselves in the front room. When we are unsure, we say so, and we have talked people out of this commission more than once.
Where the guess is uncertain, the safer version is smaller: a 16 × 20 in head and shoulders is a personal object that can live in a hallway or a bedroom, where a 36 × 48 in is a statement that has to go in the room everybody uses. Size is the part of a surprise that is easiest to get wrong and hardest to return.
What it costs
Price is set by canvas size and the number of subjects — not by the occasion, the deadline, or how much detail you ask for. The table below is the same one used on every painting page, so there is no quote to wait for.
| Canvas | Metric | 1 subject | 2 subjects | 3 subjects | 4+ subjects |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 × 10 in | 20 × 25 cm | $189 | $259 | — | — |
| 12 × 16 in | 30 × 41 cm | $289 | $379 | $459 | — |
| 16 × 20 in | 41 × 51 cm | $389 | $499 | $619 | $749 |
| 20 × 24 in | 51 × 61 cm | $549 | $699 | $849 | $1,029 |
| 24 × 36 in | 61 × 91 cm | $789 | $1,059 | $1,290 | $1,560 |
| 30 × 40 in | 76 × 102 cm | $1,090 | $1,449 | $1,749 | $2,090 |
| 36 × 48 in | 91 × 122 cm | $1,390 | $1,849 | $2,249 | $2,690 |
Shipping is free worldwide. Framing is optional and quoted separately — most customers have the canvas stretched by a local framer for $60–$120.
How it works
Send the photograph
One sharp phone photo is enough. Tell us the deadline, the wall it is going on, and anything that must or must not be in the picture.
See the mock-up within 24 hours
A digital composite at the exact canvas size and crop, so size and composition are settled before any paint is bought. Nothing is charged until you approve it.
Watch it being painted
Three to five weeks in real oil, with two progress photographs. You can raise a concern at either one — that is what they are for.
Approve, then it ships
You see the finished canvas first, with one free round of adjustments. Then it travels rolled in a rigid tube, tracked and insured, with the numbered certificate inside.
Real oil, not a print
Hand-painted on cotton canvas, varnished, signed. Brushwork you can see in raking light.
You approve before we paint
A digital mock-up at the exact size and crop, within 24 hours, included in the price.
Numbered certificate
Every painting ships with a signed COA stating artist, medium, size and year.
Free worldwide shipping
Rolled in a rigid tube, tracked and insured. No minimum, no distance surcharge.
Questions
Questions we actually get
A couple is two subjects: $289 for 12 × 16 in, $389 for the 16 × 20 in most people choose, $549 for 20 × 24 in. Rush delivery adds $90. Framing and stretching are quoted separately, and shipping is free worldwide.
It is tight but usually workable with rush delivery, which brings painting to three weeks for $90. It depends on the size and on how quickly the mock-up is approved. Send the photographs today and we will confirm a date in writing before you pay anything. We would rather decline the order than deliver it after the day.
Usually yes. Faded prints and 1980s album pages are restored first at $60–$70 and you approve the restoration. If the dress detail is blown out in every frame, we will say so and suggest building the faces from a sharper photograph taken the same year. A soft print can still make a good painting.
The mock-up goes to the organiser only, and progress photographs go to the same address. We do not contact the person being painted and we publish nothing until you tell us the gift has been given. Put a note on the order and it is flagged in the studio.
None of them, which is the point. Paper, cotton, silver and gold are the traditional materials, and a painting is not on any of those lists — so it reads as a decision rather than an obligation. In practice most of these are ordered for a tenth, twenty-fifth or fortieth, and occasionally a first.
Tell us the date first
Send the anniversary date and one photograph each. We will tell you which sizes can still make it, what it costs, and the day we would need approval.