#dont be a dick to artists
There seems to be a bit of a misconception regarding how some artists work. While I can’t speak for every artist, I can speak to my own experiences, along with the experiences that have been discussed with me by other artists and those who commission them.
If an artist is commissioned for work, but produces other pieces before the commission, don’t immediately assume the artist doesn’t value the commission. This is, quite likely, the opposite.
Many artists, myself included, will produce ‘practice’ pieces of art. Maybe we’re trying to work out a new technique, or we’re testing a new brush. It might just be that we’re trying to figure out how to approach a part of the commission piece and we’re testing that out in a work that might appear on the surface to be completely unrelated.
Sometimes, we’re working out how to approach the art at a time when we might be dealing with an art block. If you’re a writer, you may be familiar with writer’s block. This can happen in anycreative pursuit. If you’ve never personally experienced this, consider yourself lucky. But sometimes, what helps an artist come out of that is to create something random.
The point is, working these things out in a piece of our own means that the person who commissioned the work gets to benefit from the additional labor the artist put in to be able to work their commission.
Think of it as a warm-up exercise before a marathon.
Also, there’s a good chance yours isn’t the only commission they’re working on.
But here’s the thing that a lot of well-meaning people don’t even realize. When an artist is commissioned, they don’t stop being a person. Would you expect a chef who is asked to create a menu for a party not to cook for themselves in the meantime? I hope not.
Artists have personal lives, too. Taking art commissions is like any other job. There needs to be a work/life balance or both suffer. You wouldn’t want to pay for sub-standard work, right?
Anyway, please consider this when making a commission from an artist. Just because you see work you didn’t explicitly pay for being produced; try not to assume the person you’ve commissioned doesn’t value your commission. The artist is putting their name on what they produce for you. An artist’s name is part of their livelihood. They know that their next commission could rely on yourword of mouth.
They care. They care a lot.
