How to Choose a Portrait Painter: Questions to Ask Before You Pay a Deposit

Most people commission a portrait once or twice in their lives, and they do it online, in a market where the word “hand-painted” is used to describe things a printer made in eleven minutes. The real studios are easy to identify, though, if you ask a specific set of questions before any money moves. This article is that list: what to ask, what a straight answer sounds like, and the price bands that are normal in 2026. Use it as a checklist; a studio that answers all of it clearly is safe to hire, and one that answers around it is not, whatever the portfolio looks like.

Question 1: Is it painted by hand, or printed with texture?

This is the first question because it is the most common fraud in the category: a canvas print with a gel texture overlay is sold every day as an “oil painting”. The test is simple, and a good studio volunteers it before you ask — real oil paint shows visible brushstrokes and ridges of paint when light rakes across the surface from the side. Ask directly: “Will there be visible brushstrokes on the physical canvas, and can I see close-up photographs of the paint surface from previous commissions?”

A real studio will have those photos, and many send a photograph of the finished canvas before shipping as standard practice — ours does, and the process is described on the how it works page. A seller who promises a “smooth and perfect surface, no brush marks” has just told you it is a print.

Question 2: Who actually paints it?

“Our artists” can mean a trained portraitist, a workshop of painters, or a stock of pre-painted canvases waiting for a face to be pasted on. You do not need a single named genius — workshops produce perfectly good portraits — but you need a straight answer. Ask how many commissions the studio handles per month, and whether portraits are painted from your reference after the order or pre-painted. One number to be suspicious of: a shop that promises a finished oil portrait in 72 hours is either a print mill or is cutting the drying stages that a genuine oil painting needs. Three to five weeks of painting time is normal for a real one, and it is a feature, not a delay.

Question 3: Do you approve a mock-up before painting starts?

This single question removes most of the risk from the entire commission. A mock-up is a digital preview showing the composition, the crop and the background before any paint touches canvas. If a studio paints first and shows you later, you are buying a lottery ticket with your mother’s face on it. The correct workflow, which you should insist on:

1. You send reference photographs; the studio confirms they are usable before quoting a final price.
2. You receive a digital mock-up of the planned painting and approve or adjust it.
3. Painting starts only after your approval, and the finished canvas is photographed for your review.
4. One round of adjustments is included; a genuine error of likeness is repainted, not argued over.

If a seller has no mock-up step, ask what happens if you dislike the result. If the answer is a discount instead of a repaint, walk away.

Question 4: What exactly does the price include?

Portraits are priced by canvas size and subject count — how many people, pets or houses appear in the painting. Anything else should be either included or stated as a fixed addition. Ask for the full table, not just the size you want. For reference, these are our current one-subject prices, published on the custom portraits page with every other combination:

The additions that should be stated up front: restoring or merging photographs (typically $60–$70 when the reference needs it), rush delivery (around $90 for three weeks total), framing if offered, and shipping. If a quote is conspicuously low and the extras only appear after you have paid the deposit, you have learned the studio’s business model the expensive way. A quote like ours is a fixed number: send the photo through the quote form and the price you are given is the price you pay.

Question 5: What happens to my photographs and my likeness?

Two parts to this. First, copyright: painting a portrait from a photographer’s image is a derivative work, and a professional studio will ask whether your photo is a personal snapshot or a professional’s image, and may ask for a print release. If nobody mentions this at all, they have not thought about it — which tells you something. Second, usage: ask plainly whether the studio may display the finished portrait in its portfolio, and say so if the answer must be no. Reputable studios accept quiet commissions.

Question 6: What are the payment terms?

Normal in this trade, and what you should expect: orders up to about $600 paid in full when the commission starts; larger ones split roughly half at the start and half after you have seen and approved the finished canvas. A 100% deposit before any mock-up is a red flag. A 100% after delivery is rare and not necessarily better — studios that wait for full payment after shipping are usually print mills that carry zero production risk. What matters is that the terms are stated in writing before you pay, including what happens to your money if the studio cannot complete the work — a one-line answer for a serious business.

Question 7: What is the delivery time, door to wall?

“Three weeks” can mean three things and only one of them is true delivery. Painting takes three to five weeks. Transit, rolled in a rigid tube with tracking, takes another three to five business days. Then unrolling, stretching and framing on your end — a local framer charges roughly $40–$95 to stretch a 16 × 20 in and $75–$170 for a 24 × 36 in, plus a few days. So the honest door-to-wall figure is six to nine weeks from order. Ask every studio to break their timeline into those three stages. If they quote a total under two weeks for a genuine oil, revisit Question 1. If you are working toward a fixed date — an anniversary, a memorial — say so at the quote stage and get the schedule confirmed in writing, with the rush option priced ($90 buys about three weeks total with us).

Question 8: How are revisions and disputes handled?

Get these four answers in writing, because they only ever matter when something has gone wrong:

• Included revisions: one round is standard. “Unlimited revisions” usually means nobody has ever had to honour it.
• The repaint test: ask directly — “if the finished portrait does not look like the person, what happens?” The only acceptable answer is that it is repainted or refunded.
• Damage in transit: rolled canvas travels well, but ask who pays if the tube arrives crushed. It should be the studio, no debate.
• What “done” means: varnished, signed, and shipped with a certificate of authenticity. A portrait without a signature is a gift that will be difficult to explain in twenty years.

Question 9: Can the style actually do what I am asking?

Styles are not interchangeable decorations; each has a minimum size and a minimum photo quality to work at all. A loose, painterly treatment needs a larger canvas so the brushwork has room — the same stroke that looks energetic on a 24 × 36 in looks like a mistake on a 12 × 16 in. Ask the studio to look at your photograph and tell you which style it supports, not to show you their favourite portfolio piece. We put the whole comparison in writing in the style guide, and the canvas-size arithmetic in the size guide — both are worth reading before you take anyone’s style advice, including ours.

Question 10: What does the studio need from me?

Flip the interview. The best studios will interview you back, and what they ask for is a better signal than anything on their website. The list should look like this: the sharpest available photographs (face at least 500 pixels wide in the image — the reference photo guide explains why this is the single biggest predictor of a good result), the light direction consistent between photos, your honest answer on which age to paint, the wall the painting will hang on, and any fixed date. A studio that accepts a 40-pixel screenshot and says “no problem, we can do anything” is telling you they will paint a stranger. A studio that warns you before taking your money is the one that will warn you before painting something wrong.

Red flags, in one place

• “100% hand-painted” with no close-up photos of the paint surface anywhere.
• A finished oil portrait promised in under two weeks.
• No mock-up, no preview of the finished canvas before shipping.
• Prices that only exist after you type your email address.
• A deposit of 100% before the composition has even been agreed.
• “Unlimited revisions” and no stated repaint policy — generous words, no mechanism.
• Reviews only on the seller’s own site, none anywhere independent.

The short version

• Ask for close-up paint photos; brushstrokes are the test that no print passes.
• Insist on a mock-up before painting and a photograph of the canvas before shipping.
• Get the full price table with all additions: restoration $60–$70, rush $90, sizes from $289 (12 × 16 in) to $1,090 (30 × 40 in) for one subject.
• Payment: full up to ~$600, half-and-half above; written terms always.
• Door to wall is six to nine weeks; anything faster is not a real oil.
• One included revision, a repaint guarantee, and a signature — non-negotiable.

Run the ten questions against any studio you are considering, including this one — everything above is answered publicly on our process page and price table. If a studio you like fails a question, ask it once more in writing; the second answer will tell you whether you have found a painter or a printer.