How to Commission a Custom Painting
The best commissions I’ve painted didn’t start with measurements. They started with a story — a favourite hike, a wedding flower, a lake somebody’s family has returned to for thirty years. The measurements come later. A commissioned painting is the one piece of art guaranteed to be yours alone, and after decades of painting them — and twenty years teaching other people to paint at the school I founded in Newmarket — I can tell you the process is simpler than most people expect.
It starts with a conversation
Tell me what you have in mind — through the contact page, by email, or over WhatsApp. A rough idea and a photo are plenty. Some people arrive knowing exactly what they want; others just know the wall and the feeling. Both are fine starting points, and I’ll ask the questions that get us the rest of the way. From there I confirm the subject, size and price, we agree a rough timeline, and a deposit reserves your spot in the studio schedule.
From your own photo
Most of my commissions start with a photograph. A view from a hike, the lake you were married beside, the mountain you see from your kitchen window — send it to me and I’ll paint it the way I paint everything else: bold shapes, saturated colour, a modern eye rather than a faithful copy. You’re not buying a reproduction of your photo; you’re getting what the place felt like.
Then I paint it
Every commission is painted the same way as my own work: latex-acrylic on canvas, built up in layers with straight and angled brushes, the big shapes first and the colour doing the emotional work. You’ll get progress photos along the way — the underpainting, the structure emerging, the last details. Watching a blank canvas turn into their painting is most collectors’ favourite part, and honestly it’s mine too. When you’re happy with the finished piece, the balance is settled and it ships to your door.
What people ask for
Commissions span everything I paint. The Canadian Rockies — Banff, Lake Louise, Moraine Lake, the Three Sisters. West Coast shorelines and island coves. Florals built around a meaningful bloom or a room’s palette. Abstracts tuned to your colours and scale — and even one-of-a-kind resin art tables. A commission is also the only way to get an original of a subject that’s already sold; several paintings in the store marked sold have come back to life this way, reimagined for a new home rather than copied.
Price and timing, plainly
Originals are priced by size — square inches — so the cost scales with the dimensions, and I confirm the exact price before a brush touches canvas. No surprises. Timelines depend on size and the studio schedule, so if there’s a date behind your idea — a holiday, a wedding, a move-in — reach out early and tell me.
The easiest first step is to browse the paintings until something stops you, then tell me why. That “why” is usually the whole brief. — Martin