As a follow on from my last post, now I have you all excited about the possibility of taking private commissions, now I'm going to tell you how to get them, then when you do, how to charge for them.
1st of all you need to have a good think about the work that you would like to be commissioned to do, and be specific, "anything" just won't cut it here, you have to be sure what you are selling and be able to communicate that you any potential customers, if you love drawing horses then draw loads of them, or if you love babies then make it your life's ambition to be the best baby portrait artist on the planet, whatever it is that you choose, do a lot of it and do it well.
This next point you can do straight away, say you have chosen to draw cats, surely you will know somebody that has a cat, when it's their birthday / mother's day / father's day / Christmas / Easter, whatever the occasion, that about gifting a portrait of their cat to them in hopes that they will tell all of their cat loving friends ( and make sure that they have some first ! ) all about how fabulous the portrait is that you made for them, and that you are available for hire.
So now you have a portfolio, you've been sharing it online and you've got a few people talking about you, now the inquiries have started coming in, now what?
You need to be prepared for this as this can be a time and soul sucking monster. When you are working on your portfolio, keep of exactly how long each piece has taken you to create, allowing extra time for client communication, sourcing materials, photo editing, packaging, getting to the post office etc, and make sure that when you give them your price, you are at least paying yourself minimum wage, this is so important !
When you have your base price, you need to have a few different options available, ready for when somebody asks, how much for 2 portraits? How much for a full body? A background? Have all of these prices ready to go because you don't want to be wasting time working out detailed quotes for people and then have them not go through with it.
I have made a video about all of the things I have covered here to help you all out where I go into more detail about everything so give that a watch if you would like a bit more information !
I hope this has helped some of you :)
Camile xoxo