How to order a personal piece of art?

Once I had a customer who wanted my picture for his living room.

He asked me to paint it several times, we met in his home and he showed me the wall is supposed to hang on.

It was a pretty big wall.

I asked him what kind of picture he had in mind, should it be a painting or a drawing or maybe an illustration or watercolor, he said he didn‘t know, anything I will do would be fine.

After about half an hour of conversation, I managed to squeeze out of him that he would like a picture on canvas, not on paper. That was something.

Then I started to ask what kind of painting he would like — maybe a portrait of his family or himself, maybe a landscape of his favorite place or scenery, maybe a scene from his favorite book or fantasy illustration, maybe still life or an abstract painting.

He kept repeating that he would be glad to hang anything I would paint, he didn‘t have any preferences whatsoever.

I asked about the color palette — if he would like dark or light painting, warm or cold colors, maybe brighter or shadier — he still didn‘t know or didn‘t want to tell me.

After a month I brought him a painting — a flamenco dancer with the bright red dress, all colors were in a warm palette, it looked (in my opinion) good in his shady grey-toned room.

He looked at the painting for a while. Then he said he didn‘t like it.

I reminded him that he didn‘t have any preferences, although I kept asking him, he said he would hang any painting of mine.

- Yeh, but not this one. — he said. I asked him why.

- It‘s too bright, and doesn‘t have any blue color, I like blue. — I was a little frustrated.

Do you see where I am going with this?

If you‘d like to order a personal piece of art, provide the artist with as much information about your preferences, likes, and dislikes as possible.

Artist is not a mind reader, he will not guess what you secretly have in mind and hope for.

On the other hand, if you really don‘t know what you want, but you like the style of the artist and trust his or her judgment — rely on his eye, maybe you don‘t see your own interior with the kind of picture like he does, but that doesn‘t mean it‘ll look bad.