This is guaranteed to be your most profound wedding gift and will be handed down in your family for generations to come.
Register and Announcements:
After you have established your new Gift Registry
You should the send out notifications to all of your guests that you are registered here at “Heirloom Hand Painted Portraiture,” also ( www.FortFineArt.com ) including a link to your specific gift registry. You will also want to include this info in your wedding invitations and other announcements so that guests will know that you are registered here with us. Otherwise, they are not likely to be able to find and fund your Heirloom Hand Painted Fine Art Portrait.
Photographic reference material: Because the cost of portraiture is almost entirely based on the artist’s time spent creating the portrait, we most often suggest that the client provide a number of photographs which will serve as subject references and background examples. The typical portrait requires well over 50 hours for hand painting alone, even without time and travel for a photography session. This has allowed us to keep our pricing to less than half of what most other portrait artists charge for the same services and finished product. Most other portrait artists will not accept your own photos but yet also charger extra for any and all expenses related too travel for their own photographic sittings. This is unreasonable and un-necessary unless you absolutely want us to arrange for this expensive additional process which also typically takes an extra month or two to schedule. Most times it is easier to find and work with a local professional photographer who will agree to give you rights and access to all of your resulting digital files for us to work from. We are happy to help with photographer referrals as we have partners and contacts nationwide which will significantly reduce your costs. Often times you will already have adequate imagery from engagement announcements, the wedding day, from your honeymoon, or from your lives together, from which we can create your portraiture. Often it’s actually a combination of elements from many different inspirational imagery. Once you have your favorite high quality digital images compiled, e-mail us with these along with your phone # and we will contact you ASAP thereafter to discuss the rest of the process and the timeline for moving forward.
If the piece is to be a composition combined of a number of separate inspirational elements, we will work diligently on the graphic design to create an example to illustrate and communicate our best understanding of the general design and composition of the piece and sent it to you via email for your preliminary approval. Once approved by you, a master portrait artist will begin work on the piece.
Payment and Delivery Schedule: If you want the piece for display at your wedding or reception we might need to start work prior to the fulfillment of the gift registry by your contributing guests. This is possible by making a simple credit card or PayPal payment in advance to allow us to begin and you will then be reimbursed once the gift registry has been completely funded by your contributing friends and family. Otherwise we would only start once the funding for the piece has been completed through the registry.
Usually within a few weeks to a month, you will be sent a photograph of the finished piece for final approval. Once completed and dry, your portrait will be shipped to you via UPS or Fed Ex. Shipping charges will have been calculated in advance and added to the over all gift registry. Rolled canvas is our standard and preferred method. For stretched canvas, additional stretching, mounting, and crating charges would apply. Its easier to have your work stretched and mounted locally to avoid excessive crating and shipping charges.
Its important to note that if you are negotiating and scheduling a wedding or any professional portraiture session from which your example images are likely to result, you must make sure to negotiate full copyright privileges and access to these images with the photographer in advance. Most wedding photographers default contract / agreements provide that you must buy all prints and enlargement from them and they do not allow you access to your own high resolution digital image files for which you have hired the photographer. It is your responsibility to gain access to these copyrighted digital image files if you want us to use them as inspirational example images.
Photo Tips and Guidelines
Select your favorite photograph(s)
- A great portrait from your photo will result from a great photograph.
- A photograph is a message. It conveys a statement (“Here we are in…”), an impression (This is what… looks like”), or an emotion.
- Digital photos (preferred method) should be larger than 200 kb with a resolution of 640 x 480 or higher.
- If sending digital photos, you should e-mail them as file attachments ( don’t insert them into the message. ( e-mail application compress inserted image files and retain file integrity of attachments )
- If you have only a print, scanning to a high resolution digital file is recommended. If Scanning is not available on your end, we can perform this for you but additional charges may apply and you will have to mail it to us.
- We can only paint what we can see, especially when it comes to facial details – eyes and hair should be visible from the printed photo.
- If we are being asked to combine head and facial elements into a different setting, from multiple photos, head and face angles should be as exact as possible between the two images. Lighting and shadowing angles should also be the same. These conditions reveal finer nuances of the subjects which could not otherwise be known by the portrait artist.
- In any instance, please let us know what you have and what you want as a finished result and we will advice accordingly.
- Request modifications as necessary.
- To enhance colors.
- Modify backgrounds.
- Drop or eliminate unwanted objects or individuals.
- Combine various other subjects from several photos.
- Add color to a B&W photo.
- Add a unique background.
- Add studio background.
- We cannot do without additional inspirational images, additional charges, and sometimes not at all:
- Change a facial expression.
- Rotate body.
- Remove eyeglasses, braces or add hair – (could be done but not recommended).