A framed photograph of two people is a photograph. The same image painted by one of them, over four or five evenings, is something else, and the difference is entirely in who did the work.
That is the case for a couple portrait as a numbered canvas. It is not a faster way to get a picture on the wall. It is slower than printing one, by about fifteen hours.
Choosing the photograph
Most of the custom kits that come back disappointing come back because of the source image, not the paint. Four things matter:
- Faces large in the frame. A full length shot on a beach turns two heads into regions the size of a fingernail. Crop to the shoulders before uploading.
- Light from one direction. Flat, even light gives us nothing to separate into regions, and the painted version comes out looking like a sticker.
- Clear separation from the background. A dark jacket against a dark wall will merge.
- Sharp focus. We cannot recover detail that the camera did not record.
Send it through the custom kit page. We trace the photo into numbered regions, mix the acrylics to the colours actually in it, and ship the canvas with brushes. For two faces take 16x20 inches at $24.95 or larger, and take the 48 colour option. Skin tone is where the colour count earns its money: at 24 colours a face gets three tones and looks like a poster.
If the portrait is a surprise
Painting your own face in front of the person is difficult to explain. Two ways round it. Paint a photograph of the two of you from years back, which they will not have seen coming, or start with a ready made romantic canvas and give the custom one later.
Three we carry:
- Romantic Ballroom Dancers. A couple mid turn under warm light. The gown is the long part.
- Rural Couple. Quieter, a country palette, and much faster to finish.
- Goldfish Couple. The oblique one, for people who find ballroom dancers too much.
Timing
Printing and paint mixing take one to three business days. Delivery is seven to fifteen. Then allow the painting itself: roughly twelve to twenty hours for a 16x20 portrait at 48 colours, spread over as many evenings as you like. Acrylic dries in minutes, so the canvas can sit half finished for a week with no harm done.
For the anniversary or wedding version of this, with the timings worked backwards from the date, see our wedding gift guide.
Shipping is free to the US, Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia and New Zealand. Custom kits are covered: if the canvas arrives damaged or misprinted we reprint it or refund it.
