I don’t advertise commissions, but if someone approaches me with an idea, I’ll always listen. I’m quite fussy with what I accept, but if I have the time available and the idea is something that aligns with my practice, then I’ll say yes! I add these caviats because sometimes people have asked me for things that just don’t make sense with my style (confusing), or they’re very vague with what they want (stressful) or it’s fan art (just no) or they’re not comfortable with my pricing (understandable) so enquiries don’t always go ahead. When everything aligns though, I’m happy to accept.
One such project happened recently when a lovely lady requested a commissioned illustration of a house sparrow. Happily, she was able to wait until I had a gap in my schedule and I thought I’d share with you the process I went through to make it happen.
Preliminary Sketches
When I’m starting on a new piece, I’ll always begin with lots of quick, lose sketches to get to know my subject. In this case, since I’m pretty familiar with birds (lol) it wasn’t hard to spend a bit of time drawing a page of sparrows to remind myself of their form, character and markings. Unless I have any personal photos, I use reference images for this from google and pinterest.
Design Ideas
This varies between projects depending on how specific the client has been with their request. Quite often I’ll do several quick design sketches for myself, and narrow it down to two or three options to show the client. Sometimes I only need to show one design, but in any case I’ll send a relatively simple sketch for their approval. We decided upon a sparrow perched upon a bit of foliage from the hedge outside the client’s house.
Feedback
Again this varies, but feedback is an important part of commission work, and when I accept a job the client receives a document explaining how many changes I’m willing to make to achieve a design they are happy with. We might need a couple of tries to nail the final design, but in this case, the customer was happy for me to take the lead (my favourite) and had no requests (dream). But she did send a very helpful reference photo of her garden hedge so I could incorporate it into the drawing!
Drawing/Painting/Inking
I got to work on the final art, using a mixture of pencil, watercolour, coloured pencils, and oil pastels. I’m very terrible at taking progress photos whilst doing this bit.
Sign Off
Once I was happy the piece was finished, I took photos to send to the client. And she was happy too (phew)! I took a scan of the illustration for my records and possible future use, and then I’m all done so I was able to package this little fella carefully and take him on a trip to the post office. I hope he enjoys his new life!
I absolutely love your page of preliminary sketches of him - I’d very happily buy a print of that! 🥰
So interesting to see your creative process ! This little sparrow is adorable 🐦