Commissioning a painting sounds grander than it is. In practice it is closer to ordering tailoring: you bring the reference, approve a mock-up, and a craftsperson makes the thing. Here is the whole process, honestly, including the parts most studios gloss over.

1. Start with the photograph, not the painter

The single biggest predictor of how your portrait turns out is not the artist — it is the photo. Oil paint can add light, soften a jawline, remove a lamppost. It cannot recover detail that the camera never captured.

  • Sharp beats everything. A slightly boring, perfectly sharp phone photo beats a dramatic, slightly blurry one.
  • Faces need light. Window light from the front or 45° is ideal. Backlit silhouettes are beautiful and useless as reference.
  • Old photos are welcome — creased, faded, even torn. Restoration is a standard add-on (typically $60–$70), and merging two photos into one composition is routine.
  • Check the licence. If a professional took the photo, you need their permission to paint from it. A wedding print release usually covers printing, not painting — ask, in writing.

2. Understand what you are paying for

A hand-painted oil portrait is priced mostly by canvas size and how many subjects are in it, because both drive weeks of work. Our own table runs from $189 for a single-subject 8 × 10 in to $2,690 for a 36 × 48 in with four subjects — and it is published in full, because a studio that hides prices behind a “request a quote” button is usually about to charge you for asking.

If a listing promises a “hand-painted oil portrait” for $40 with three-day delivery, it is a print with texture gel, or worse, AI output. Real oil cannot physically dry in three days.

What legitimately adds cost: extra subjects, complex backgrounds, combining or restoring photos, rush timelines, and linen instead of cotton canvas. What should not add cost: the mock-up, the first revision round, and shipping.

3. Insist on a digital mock-up before anyone paints

A serious studio sends a digital composition mock-up — the exact crop, pose arrangement and background — before priming a canvas. This is the step that separates a commission from a gamble. If a studio will not show you what they intend to paint, walk away.

4. Expect to see it twice while it is being painted

Oil is painted in layers over weeks; each layer needs to dry. A good studio photographs the work-in-progress for you at least twice. You are not being difficult by replying “could the background be calmer?” at that stage — you are using the process correctly. Structural changes (pose, composition) belong to the mock-up stage; tone and detail adjustments belong to the painting stage.

5. Approve, then let it dry and varnish

When the painting is done you receive a photograph of the real canvas. You approve it (or use your one free revision round), the painting gets a final varnish for UV and protection, and it ships. Paintings travel rolled in a rigid tube, never framed — a stretched canvas crossing an ocean costs three to five times more to freight and is far likelier to arrive damaged. Any local framer stretches a rolled canvas in days for the price of a takeaway meal.

The four first-timer mistakes

  1. Buying one size too small. A 12 × 16 in reads as a shelf picture. If two sizes are close in price, take the larger.
  2. Sending the only copy of a precious photo as a physical print by post. Photograph it with your phone under even light, or scan it, and keep the original.
  3. Asking for “the same as the photo but in this famous painter's style.” Style transfers badly by name. Instead, send two or three reference paintings you love and let the studio tell you honestly whether they can paint in that spirit.
  4. Assuming it can be rushed. Genuine oil needs drying time between layers and a curing varnish. Three weeks is fast. Three days is a print.

What you should receive, every time

  • A published price table — before you ask
  • A digital mock-up, free, before painting starts
  • Two work-in-progress photographs
  • One free revision round on the finished piece
  • A signed, numbered certificate of authenticity
  • Free worldwide shipping, rolled and insured

If a studio ticks every box above, the only thing left to compare is whether you like their paintings. That part, you already know how to do.