Pandemic Portrait Service
“Pandemic Portraits” is a quick-sketch portrait commission service to help people feel connected with their loved ones during the global Coronavirus pandemic. Let someone know you are thinking of them by having me send a hand-drawn postcard to your pen pal!
I’m taking commissions to make small postcard size sketches, in a variety of media, of your loved ones and of the helpers in our communities.
For the recession friendly price of $30 AUD, I will create a postcard size sketch for you. If you would like the original sent to you or to a loved one, that can be done for an additional $10 AUD in Australia, or $15 everywhere else.
The goal of the associated Instagram account — @pandemic_portraits — is to create a portraits to remind us all that even though we’re staying home with safer spacing, our loved ones are really never that far away.
Customers request commissions for a variety of reasons. Some ideas:
Have a portrait made of someone you wish you could hug right now
Send a portrait to someone to let you know you’re thinking of them (the portrait might be of you or of them)
Honour the helpers in their community (health workers, food delivery, postal workers, supermarket shelf stackers and so on)
Remember family members who recently passed away
Fill out the order form (which pops up when you click ‘add to cart’) to let me know the commission details and I’ll make it happen.
See previous portraits, follow the project and share it with your friends on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/pandemic_portraits/
Choice Of Medium
Due to the wide variety of styles in photo reference, and in people’s appearances, I choose different mediums depending on the images I work from. Sometimes black & white ink painting feels right, sometimes colour pencil with watercolour, sometimes pencil or charcoal…
The goal is to pick a medium that will result in the most flattering portrait of the subject possible.
If you have a particular request you can let me know in the order form, and otherwise, please trust me with the decision!
Reference Material
A good quality reference make all the difference for a good portrait.
The image should be large enough to see details, have lighting at a slight angle to provide some definition to the face, and let me see their features clearly.
(That is, straight on front view photos, shot with a flash, and sent compressed from a phone screenshot, are hard to work from).
Got a good image for me to work from? Great – you can:
• email images directly to me simon [at] simonocarrigan [dot] com [dot] au
• send me a link to a (public) social media profile and to specific posts
• arrange for me to do a video call, have a friendly chat, and help get a good image from which I can work
If you have any questions before proceeding with a commission, please get in touch.