Portrait Sketch Commissions
‘Pandemic Portraits’ is a project designed to help us all feel closer to our pen-pals while living with ‘safer spacing’ in the time of Coronavirus and Covid-19.
Client: You, and other wonderful humans!
Year: 2020
Medium: Various (graphite, charcoal, colour pencil, india ink, sumi ink, watercolour…)
** Update: March 2021: Commissions will be paused for a few months while I work on other projects. If you have a special request, please email me to enquire. **
When you click add to cart, an order form will pop up allowing you to fill me in with the details of your request.
** Please note: Australia Post are currently unable to guarantee any delivery times (thanks, pandemic!), but I have a workaround for that. See the FAQ below. **
If you need your portrait by a specific date please contact me by email to check availability first.
If you wish to collect the work from my studio and save the postage cost, add the code PICKUP at checkout to negate postage.
If you are a student, pensioner, or currently unemployed / un-waged / under-employed, please accept a discount. Use the code PORTRAIT40 at the checkout for a $40 discount.
The process
Context: “Pandemic Portraits” is a quick-sketch portrait commission service to help people feel connected with their loved ones during the global Coronavirus pandemic. Let someone know you are thinking of them by having me send a hand-drawn postcard to your pen pal!
Collaborators: You, and other wonderful humans.
Brief: I’m taking commissions to make small postcard size sketches, in a variety of media, of your loved ones and of the helpers in our communities.
I will create a postcard size sketch for you. If you would like the original sent to you or to a loved one, that can be done for an additional $10 AUD in Australia, or $15 everywhere else.
Approach: Customers request commissions for a variety of reasons. Some ideas:
Have a portrait made of someone you wish you could hug right now
Send a portrait to someone to let you know you’re thinking of them (the portrait might be of you or of them)
Honour the helpers in your community by having me include them in the Instagram portrait project (think health workers, food delivery, postal workers, supermarket shelf stackers and so on) — say thank you and ask them for a quick photo!
Results: The goal of the associated Instagram account — @pandemic_portraits — is to create a ‘wall of portraits’ to remind us all that even though we’re staying home with safer spacing, our loved ones are really never that far away, and even when we feel isolated or at risk, there are citizens who are going out of their way to help others in ways both large and small.
See previous portraits, follow the project and share it with your friends on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/pandemic_portraits/
FAQs
Sketching by Video Call: You can arrange for me to make a video call, have a friendly chat, and let me help get a good image from which I can work.
This is perfect for people you can’t be with in person to get a good photo of. (This has the advantage, too, that I’ll get a good sense of the subject which helps with the portrait.)
I’m pretty friendly and a very good listener!
There is the option in the order form to add a phone number or video call app details.
Sending Me Reference Photos/Videos: A good quality reference makes all the difference for a good portrait.
The image should be large enough to see details, have lighting at a slight angle to provide some definition to the face, and let me see their features clearly.
(That is, straight on front view photos, shot with a flash, and sent compressed from a phone screenshot, are hard to work from).
Got a good image for me to work from? Great – you can:
• email images directly to me, or
• send me a link to a (public) social media profile and/or to specific posts
Choice of Medium: Due to the wide variety of styles in photo reference, and in people’s appearances, I choose different mediums depending on the images I work from. Sometimes black & white ink painting feels right, sometimes colour pencil with watercolour, sometimes pencil or charcoal…
The goal is to pick a medium that will result in the most flattering portrait of the subject possible.
If you have a particular request you can let me know in the order form, and otherwise, please trust me with the decision!
If you have any questions before proceeding with a commission, please get in touch:
simon [at] simonocarrigan [dot] com [dot] au
How long does the drawing take? It takes about 2-3 hours to draw the sketch but with all the other bits (preparing the reference photos, trimming & packing paper safely, admin & postage, deadlines from other freelance illustration work, etc), please allow 3-5 days before you get a polished digital photo of the finished work from me via email. If you have a deadline (anniversary, birthday, etc) and it might be cutting it fine, please contact me to ask about a deadline before placing an order.
How long does it take to get to me in the post? I send the works as regular letters and, in normal times, these get most places in Aus in 1-3 days. But, the pandemic has disrupted Australia’s Post transport providers both nationally and internationally. As of late April, Australia Post is suffering major delays across the board, and Australia Post cannot currently guarantee any delivery dates, not even for Express Post. I will continue to send the works in regular mail, but I will get you the polished photo of the work as soon as it is done. If you would like me to upgrade the postage to Express Post, for the sake of including tracking, please contact me before placing an order.