Valentine's Day
A portrait for Valentine's Day
A double portrait for 14 February: how to count back from the date, what two subjects cost, and what to do when the calendar has already gone.
A Valentine's commission is a two-subject painting, and two subjects change the arithmetic twice over: the price rises a fixed step above the single-subject rate in the table, and the composition stops being automatic. Two heads that sit at exactly the same height, level and evenly spaced, is the arrangement that makes a couple portrait look like a passport page — the likeness of each person is fine and the picture is somehow dead.
Work backwards from 14 February: mock-up within 24 hours of ordering, three to five weeks of painting, three to five business days in transit, and a few days of margin for the one free round of adjustments. That puts the safe ordering date in the last days of December or the first week of January.
Composition: the heads should not match
Couples, parents with children, sisters — each needs a different arrangement, and the common thread is asymmetry. One head slightly higher, one figure turned a few degrees towards the other, a shoulder overlapping. The difference in height is what makes two people read as a unit rather than as two portraits sharing a canvas.
For romantic couples the classic choice is one seated, one standing behind, hands touching or not. For a parent and child the child sits and the parent leans in. If you have only photographs where you stand side by side facing the camera, say so in the brief — the mock-up can rearrange the pose, and you approve it before any paint exists.
What the mock-up cannot do is manufacture chemistry from two stiff frames. If the only photographs of the two of you are formal and arm's-length, the painting will be formal and arm's-length no matter how the pose is rearranged — the faces carry whatever the frames caught. The fix is unromantic: go and take one. Ten minutes by a window, one of you slightly turned towards the other, is worth more than any studio's brushwork, and it can be on its way the same evening.
The deadline, counted honestly
Ordering in the first days of January is comfortable. Ordering in late January puts you on rush delivery: $90 brings the whole job — painting included — to three weeks, which still leaves transit and the adjustment round inside February for the smaller and mid sizes. Rush does not apply to the two largest canvases.
If even that is gone, the painting can still exist by 14 February only as a promise: the mock-up, a printed card and a date. That is a weaker gift than the canvas, and it is better than a rushed painting or a worse studio. Do not let a calendar push you to a seller who skips the approval steps.
A word on what the date is worth: 14 February is a deadline you chose, not one the painting chose. The commission takes three to five weeks because the likeness takes three to five weeks, and compressing it further is the one trade that always shows. If the choice is between a rushed canvas on the day and a proper one a week late, most people who have been through both will tell you the week late was the better gift — but that is your call to make with the calendar in front of you.
One photograph or two
Best is one photograph of the two of you where both faces are sharp and the light agrees with itself. That photo is rarer than people expect, so the usual route is two separate photographs combined into one composition — $60–$70, with light direction matched between them and the combined mock-up approved before painting starts.
Send the photos where the two of you look like yourselves rather than the most recent ones. A couple portrait painted from two strained, formal frames will be technically correct and emotionally inert, and neither of you will hang it.
On size: two heads want room, and the comfortable choice is 20 × 24 in at $549 with the second-subject step included. A 12 × 16 in can carry two close head-and-shoulders but nothing more, and a first Valentine's portrait usually deserves better than the minimum. The table above is the entire price list; there is no couple surcharge beyond the second subject and no February surcharge at all.
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
Count back from 14 February: mock-up within 24 hours, three to five weeks of painting, three to five business days of transit, plus margin for the free adjustment. Late December or the first week of January is comfortable. Past mid-January, rush delivery at $90 compresses everything to three weeks including painting.
A second subject adds a fixed step to the single-subject price, so a couple at 16 × 20 in costs more than the $389 single rate — the exact figures for two subjects are in the table above. Shipping is free worldwide and identical whether it is a gift or not.
No. Two separate photographs are combined into one composition with the light matched, for $60–$70, and you approve the combined mock-up before painting begins. It is routine work here; send the two sharpest photos where each of you looks like yourself.
Within reason, yes. The mock-up can rearrange a side-by-side pose into one seated and one standing, change the crop, or shift the background. What a mock-up cannot do is invent a face from an angle it was never photographed at — the likeness must come from the references you send.
Then the honest options are rush delivery at $90 — three weeks total, smaller and mid sizes only — or a printed mock-up with a delivery date as the gift on the day. Do not switch to a faster seller who skips the approval steps; that trade ends with a painting nobody hangs.
Send the photograph of the two of you
One photo or two — you will know within 24 hours what the composition looks like and exactly when it can be in your hands.