Black and colour

By reducing the image to a simple "colour/no-colour" great effects can be created. It also happens to be extremely flattering!

How we work with you to create your Black and Colour style picture

Step 1 - The photo
The first step will be for us to take a look at your photo and make sure we can work with it. For the best results we need to work from a clear and above all in focus photo. Please bear in mind that as a basic rule, the better the photo we receive, the better the end result will be. As the artist is working only from the photo and needs to be able to zoom in on it to find the detail, it is very important that the shot is clear and in focus. As a guide, if you are unable to clearly see the colour of the person's eyes, then the shot is probably not suitable.
A shot with the person's head and shoulders taking up most of the frame is really ideal. Do remember that the portrait is about the person, rather than the situation they are in, so rather boring head on shots work far better than action shots. As the portrait will hang on your wall for many years to come, it's worth taking time to get the right photo for the artist to work from!
With this style the artist is taking the face down to areas of shadow and light, so to see if a photo will work well in this style, we really do need to see it and do a number of tests on it. What we've found is that some photos that look like they may work in this style sometimes won't and those that don't look too promising, sometimes work well! If you have a number of photos that you would consider using then we'd love to see them all - the more the merrier.

Step 2 - Composition and colours
Once we have a photo we can work with, we will then move on to address the issue of composition and colours.
Composition
This is essentially about where the head sits within the canvas. To help decide on the composition of the picture we will send back a number of crops of your photo for you to consider. Some will be close crops, concentrating very much on the face, with others showing the full face and more background.
Colours
This style can effectively work with any two contrasting colors. The beige and black shown opposite is very popular and works well, but if you want it in cerise and yellow - no problem. As a starting point, why not have a think about colours that would fit in with interior.
When you've decided on the composition and colours you would like to see, our artist starts work.

Step 3 - The portrait
About 2 weeks or so later, we would then email you back a first draft of the picture, using the colours you have chosen, but also showing you how it would look using some other colour combinations. This gives you the opportunity to feedback to us and to decide on the picture that you really want, before anything is printed.
These pictures are finished as a dye sublimation print on canvas. This process gives you a wonderful and very contemporary matt finish with the grain of the canvas showing through slightly. This means no sheen to distract the viewer from the image and looks fantastic when it's just stretched around a wooden frame and hung on the wall.
Only when you are completely happy with the portrait is it then framed according to your request, packed up and despatched to you.

In all the process should take about 4 weeks.

Which size canvas should you choose?
It is worth bearing in mind that a little bit of scale does suit these portraits. A bigger picture allows the artist to go into finer detail resulting in a much richer portrait.
Because the artwork is created by a Graphic artist and the canvas is then printed, the bulk of the cost for us, is the creative development (which remains the same for either a small or large portrait) rather than the material cost of the canvas and stretcher bars. For this reason the bigger canvases can in a way be though of as better value. If you look at the table below you can see how a small jump in price, gets you a huge leap in size.
Our recommended size in this style is 70cm x 70cm or above.

Prices for Black and Colour style portraits

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