The process
How We Paint — From Your Photo to a Finished Painting
Every piece is completed by one painter from start to finish. No assembly line, no printing, no AI. This page shows one painting through all eight stages — the same set of photographs we point to from every page on the site.
Eight stages, one painter, one canvas
- 01
Photo review and composition
We check the reference for focus, light and resolution, then agree the crop, background and canvas orientation with you before any paint goes down.
- 02
Charcoal drawing
The painter draws the subject directly on the primed canvas, measuring proportions against the photo. Likeness is decided here, not later.
- 03
Underpainting
A thin, fast wash establishes the big light and dark shapes and kills the white of the canvas so colour can be judged accurately.
- 04
Blocking in form
Large masses of the coat, skin and background are laid in with opaque paint, working from mid-tones outward.
- 05
Face and eyes
The painter slows down. Eyes, nose and mouth are built up in several passes — this is where a portrait becomes that animal or person.
- 06
Detail and highlights
Fur direction, whisker roots, the catchlight in the eye, the wet edge of a nose. Fine brushes, small strokes, thicker paint where light hits.
- 07
Varnish and drying
After the paint has cured, a protective varnish evens the sheen and deepens the darks. Drying time is never rushed.
- 08
Framing or rolling, then crating
Framed pieces are boxed in a custom wooden crate; unframed pieces are rolled around a wide core in a rigid tube. Photographed before sealing.
All eight photographs are of the same painting, from one uninterrupted commission. We never show one painting's process photos on another painting's page.
Other mediums. Acrylic follows the same eight stages with drying measured in hours rather than weeks. Charcoal, watercolour and pencil portraits are made on archival paper in fewer stages — drawing, tone, detail — and are proofed the same way before they ship flat.
Timelapse
Canvas and hands only
The timelapse is filmed on the easel with the camera on the canvas. No faces, no studio tour — the painter's identity is not the point. Watch the drawing appear, the underpainting go down, and the face resolve over the last third of the film.
Raking light
Straight on, then lit from the side
Photograph any hand-painted canvas with a light at 45° to the surface and every brushstroke throws a shadow. The paint has physical thickness — thicker where the light hits the subject, thinner in the shadows. A print is flat; a photo printed on canvas and painted over shows a uniform weave under the "strokes". This pair of photographs is included with every digital proof.
The pair is shot from your painting and comes with your proof. Hold the two frames side by side: the front-lit one is for colour and likeness, the 45° one settles whether you are looking at paint or at ink. On a print the "strokes" stay flat and a uniform canvas weave runs underneath them.
Before shipping
The digital proof
When the painting is finished and dry we photograph it — straight on and under raking light — and send the photos to you for approval. You can ask for adjustments to likeness, colour or background at this stage; the painter makes them and sends a new proof. Nothing is varnished, framed or shipped until you say yes.
For trade orders the proof goes to you to forward to your customer. It is both the quality check and the reason we can keep refunds rare: the painting you receive is the painting you approved.
Materials
What the painting is made of
- Canvas
- Triple-primed cotton or linen canvas on kiln-dried stretcher bars, or unstretched for rolled shipping.
- Paint
- Artist-grade acrylic and oil colours with lightfast pigments — the same ranges used for gallery work, not student sets.
- Varnish
- Removable synthetic picture varnish, applied once the paint has cured, to protect the surface and unify the finish.
What we do not do
Four shortcuts we refuse
Low prices attract one question: how? The answer is structure — our own painters, no advertising, no retail layer — not shortcuts on the canvas.
- Print a photo onto canvas and paint over it
- Trace a projected image onto the canvas
- Generate the image with AI, in any step
- Split one painting between several painters
Have a photo? Ask us what it will support
Send the photo and tell us the subject. We reply with a size recommendation, the detail level the photo supports, and a quote.
Thank you — we have your inquiry.
We reply within 24 hours on business days. Want an answer sooner? Message us on WhatsApp and mention your name.
Open WhatsApp