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How to Commission a Painting: A Step-by-Step Guide to Custom Artwork

Custom commissioned geometric abstract painting inspired by White Sands National Park featuring a symbolic tree, shooting star, and personalized star chart by Artist Shilo Ratner

Commissioning a painting is one of the most meaningful ways to bring original art into your home. Unlike purchasing existing artwork, a commissioned painting is created specifically for your space, allowing you to own a piece that reflects your personal style, color palette, and connection to a place or memory.

If you've ever wondered how to commission a painting, what the process involves, or how long a custom artwork takes, this guide walks you through every step.

Why Commission a Painting?

A commissioned painting allows you to collaborate directly with an artist to create artwork tailored to your home. Whether you're looking for a large statement piece for a living room, a custom geometric landscape inspired by a favorite location, or a painting that complements your interior design, the process is often simpler than people expect.

Many collectors come to me with a clear vision, while others begin with only a feeling, color palette, or inspiration image. Both approaches work beautifully.

Step 1: The Initial Inquiry (Day 1)

Every custom painting begins with a conversation.

You don't need to have every detail figured out before reaching out. A great starting point is sharing:

  • The room where the artwork will hang
  • Desired dimensions
  • Colors you're drawn to
  • Inspiration photos or existing artwork you love
  • The overall mood you'd like the painting to convey

The goal of this first conversation is to determine whether we're a good fit and to discuss the possibilities for your commissioned artwork. There is no obligation at this stage.

Step 2: Proposal and Commission Quote (Days 2–5)

Once I understand the scope of the project, I'll provide a proposal outlining:

  • Painting size
  • Medium
  • Estimated completion timeline
  • Investment and payment schedule

This is the perfect time to ask questions, discuss adjustments, and make sure every aspect of the commission feels right before moving forward.

A deposit secures your place on the studio calendar and officially begins the commission process.

Step 3: Creating the Painting (Weeks 1–3)

Once your commission is scheduled, work begins in the studio.

For my geometric abstract landscape paintings, the creative process unfolds through multiple layers of color, composition, and refinement. Each stage requires careful consideration and drying time, allowing the painting to develop naturally.

Creating original artwork isn't rushed. The most successful paintings emerge through a balance of structure, intuition, and thoughtful decision-making.

Step 4: Work-in-Progress Updates (Weeks 2–4)

Throughout the commission process, you'll receive progress photographs at key stages.

These updates allow you to experience the evolution of your painting and ensure we're aligned on the overall direction. While the artistic process remains guided by my expertise and creative vision, feedback is welcomed if something significant needs to be addressed before completion.

Many collectors say this behind-the-scenes glimpse becomes one of the most rewarding parts of commissioning a painting.

The painting featured in this post is an example of a completed commission, a geometric abstract inspired by White Sands National Park, incorporating a symbolic tree, shooting star, and personalized star chart chosen by the collector to reflect a specific place and memory.

Step 5: Final Review and Approval (Weeks 4–6)

Once the artwork is complete, you'll receive professional photographs of the finished painting.

This is your opportunity to review the final piece before delivery. Once approved, the remaining balance is due and preparations begin for shipping.

Step 6: Shipping and Delivery (Weeks 6–8)

Your original painting is carefully packaged and shipped with tracking information.

Most commissioned paintings arrive within one to two weeks, depending on location. Artwork arrives ready to hang so you can immediately enjoy it in your space.

How Long Does a Commissioned Painting Take?

The typical timeline for a custom painting is approximately six to eight weeks from the initial inquiry to delivery.

If you're commissioning artwork for a specific occasion, such as a housewarming gift, anniversary, corporate installation, or new home, it's best to reach out as early as possible to discuss timing.

Frequently Asked Questions About Commissioning Artwork

What if I don't know exactly what I want?

That's completely normal. Many commissions begin with only a rough idea, favorite colors, or inspiration from a landscape, memory, or room design.

Can I commission a painting to match my home?

Yes. Many collectors commission artwork specifically to complement existing furnishings, architecture, or color palettes.

Do you create custom geometric landscape paintings?

Yes. My work transforms coastal views, mountain landscapes, and natural environments into structured geometric abstractions inspired by place, color, and form.

How much does a commissioned painting cost?

Pricing varies based on size, complexity, and materials. A personalized quote is provided after the initial consultation.

Not Ready for a Commission? Original Work Is Available Now

A commission is the most personal way to own original work, but it isn't the only way. If a six-to-eight week timeline doesn't suit you, or you'd prefer to see exactly what you're getting before committing, there are finished paintings available now, framed, signed, and ready to ship.

These are one-of-a-kind originals, each built from the same geometric language as my commissioned work. Once they're gone, they won't be available again.

Browse original paintings available now →

Start Your Commission Today

If you're ready to commission an original painting, or simply want to explore the possibility, the next step is straightforward: send me a message.

Share the room, the size, the colors you love, or even just a photo that captures the feeling you're after. I'll take it from there.

Email shiloratner@gmail.com to begin your commission inquiry.

Commission slots are limited. If you have a specific date or occasion in mind, reaching out early ensures we have time to create something exceptional together.

Further Reading

Lire aussi

Voir tout Shilo Ratner, actualités de l'atelier d'art et des expositions
Artist Shilo Ratner landscape work explores color, structure, and landscape through a precise geometric lens.
Choosing a Landscape Painting by Mood: Calm, Energy, and Depth for Your Home
When people start looking for a landscape painting for their home, they usually begin with practical decisions, color palette, size, or where it will hang. But the more important question is often overlooked: how do you want your space to feel? This guide explores three emotional directions in landscape art for interiors, calm, energy, and depth, and how each can shift the atmosphere of your home.
Full Moon Mountain, a 30x30 geometric abstract painting by Shilo Ratner, featuring a luminous moon above a structured mountain landscape in blue and white
Geometric Art for a Home Office: How Structure and Color Shape the Way You Work
The home office has become one of the most considered rooms in the house. It's where focus meets creativity, and where long hours demand an environment that supports both. Art plays a larger role in that environment than most people realize, and geometric abstract art, with its structure, rhythm, and disciplined use of color, is especially well suited to the space.
Three geometric abstract mountain paintings by Shilo Ratner, featuring bold color and structured form
The Psychology of Color in Art
The Psychology of Color in Art I've been thinking a lot lately about how color functions almost independently from subject matter in painting. Long before we recognize an object, a horizon line, or a figure, we react emotionally to color relationships. That reaction is immediate and psychological. It's one of the reasons I continue returning to artists like Josef Albers and Pierre Bonnard. Their work reminds me that color itself can become the structure, emotion, and atmosphere of a painting. Albers approached color almost scientifically. His studies explored how colors change depending on what surrounds them, how one color can appear completely different when placed beside another. A muted gray can suddenly become luminous. A soft blue can feel cold against one tone and electric against another. What fascinates me about Albers is that he proved color is never fixed. It's relational. Psychological. Unstable in the most beautiful way. Bonnard approached color differently, but with just as much intensity. His paintings dissolve observation into atmosphere. The color combinations are often unexpected: acidic yellows against lavender shadows, saturated oranges beside pale violets, strange greens woven into interiors and skin tones. Yet somehow the paintings feel emotionally true. That balance between dissonance and harmony is something I think about constantly in my own work. When I'm painting water, marshes, or coastal spaces, I'm rarely interested in reproducing literal color. I'm more interested in creating a sensation through color interaction. Sometimes that means pushing warmth into areas that should technically feel cool, or allowing deep ultramarines to sit beside softened blush tones because the tension between those colors creates emotional movement. I think that's where painting becomes less about documentation and more about perception. Certain color combinations can create stillness while others create vibration. A muted blue-gray beside a sharp coral can suddenly make a painting feel alive. Soft tonal shifts can create quietness and distance. Saturation can create physical energy. I notice this especially when layering paint. Often the most important decisions happen when I stop thinking about "local color" entirely and start thinking about temperature, contrast, memory, and emotional weight. That's something Bonnard understood deeply. His paintings were never really about interiors or landscapes alone. They were about light filtered through memory and emotion. The color carried the psychological experience of the space. I think collectors respond to this intuitively, even if they don't consciously analyze why. People often tell me a painting feels calming, expansive, nostalgic, or atmospheric before they ever discuss composition. The emotional response happens first. And honestly, I think that's the power of painting itself. Color bypasses language. It reaches us in a place that feels instinctive, emotional, and almost impossible to fully explain. Related Reading If this resonates, these posts go deeper into the ideas behind the work: How Josef Albers Shaped the Way I See Color — the direct influence of Albers' relational color theory on my geometric practice. Pierre Bonnard and the Color That Holds — how a trip to Paris deepened my understanding of color as emotional memory. Raimonds Staprans: Saturated Color, Presence, and Lasting Impact — another painter who uses color as pure psychological force. Pieces That Connect These works came directly out of the ideas above, color as structure, tension as atmosphere: Sail Away, 36×36 — ultramarine and warm coral in direct tension, the color does the emotional work before the subject registers. Beach, 30×30 — soft tonal shifts across a geometric plane, stillness created through temperature rather than subject. Harbor, 30×40 — deep blues and muted neutrals layered to create distance and quiet, the kind of atmospheric weight Bonnard understood. Bring This Into Your Space If you've ever felt drawn to a painting before you could explain why, that's color doing exactly what it's meant to do. Explore the collection to find the piece that holds that feeling for you, or inquire about a custom commission if you have a specific palette or feeling in mind. Explore the Collection →
Shilo Ratner working in her studio on a geometric abstract painting
What Makes a Painting Feel Alive?
There's a moment in the studio when a painting stops needing you. Shilo Ratner reflects on what makes a painting feel emotionally alive, from intuitive color choices and visible layers to the tension between imperfection and completion.
Beach 30x30 original geometric abstract painting by Shilo Ratner on white wall
One Painting, Fully Explained: Beach
Most paintings get a title, a price, and a few sentences. This one takes a closer look. Beach is a 30 × 30 geometric abstract painting built from the logic of the shoreline, behavior, not appearance. This is a complete breakdown: where it started, how it was built, what changed, and what most people miss. See Beach in the collection → The Initial Idea The starting point wasn't a visual. It was a behavior. I kept returning to the way water moves at the shoreline, not the look of it, but the logic. The tide doesn't repeat exactly. Each wave recedes at a slightly different angle, leaves a slightly different edge, pulls back with slightly different force. There's a system operating, but it never produces the same result twice. A system needs enough repetition to be legible, but enough variation to stay alive. That tension between system and variation is what I wanted to build into a painting. Not a picture of the beach. A painting that works the way the beach works. Building the System The canvas is square, which matters. A square doesn't have a natural direction. It doesn't push the eye left to right or top to bottom the way a landscape format does. That neutrality was useful here, because the movement had to come entirely from the forms themselves, not from the shape of the support. The composition is built from horizontal bands that shift, compress, and interrupt each other. They function as tidal layers: each one moving at a different rate, overlapping without merging. The eye follows the edges rather than any single focal point. There's no center of gravity. The painting holds attention by distributing it. That relationship between rhythm and structure is something I explored more directly in Ebb and Flow Abstract Painting: When Surrender Becomes Creation. I also made a deliberate decision to keep the forms hard-edged. Soft edges would read as atmospheric, impressionistic, wave-like in a literal sense. Hard edges force the geometry to carry the movement instead. The result feels more like a diagram of the coast than a depiction of it. Color Logic The palette is blue and neutral, but the neutrals are doing most of the structural work. A range of warm and cool off-whites sits alongside the blues, and the temperature shifts between them create a subtle spatial push and pull. Warmer neutrals advance slightly. Cooler ones recede. That movement is quiet, but it's what gives the painting depth without relying on illusionistic perspective. The same principle is at work in How Josef Albers Shaped the Way I See Color. The blues are controlled rather than expressive. Some lean toward slate, others toward a washed cerulean, others toward near-gray. Each one is chosen for its relationship to the forms around it, not for emotional effect on its own. The emotion comes from the whole, not any single color. I also kept the value range relatively compressed. High contrast would have created drama. I was after something steadier, calm, but still in motion. The result is a kind of unsettled calm, like watching the tide without needing it to resolve. What Changed Along the Way The early version had more forms, more bands, more interruptions, more variation in width. It was busier, and that busyness worked against the system. I simplified. Removed two horizontal elements entirely. Widened two of the remaining bands so the rhythm slowed down. The painting became quieter, and paradoxically more active, because the eye had room to move between the forms rather than being crowded by them. The frame color also changed. The original frame was a cooler white that competed with the lightest tones in the painting. I switched to a warmer wood finish that separates cleanly from the canvas without pulling attention. What Viewers Don't Notice The edges of the forms are not perfectly parallel. This is intentional. If every horizontal band were exactly parallel, the painting would feel mechanical, static, like a striped field rather than a system in motion. The slight deviations, a degree or two at most, create the sense that the forms are shifting relative to each other. It reads as movement without being obvious about it. Most people also don't notice how few colors are actually in the painting. From a distance it reads as rich and varied. Up close, the palette is spare. That compression is part of the discipline: getting a lot of visual information from a small number of decisions. The bottom edge of the composition is slightly heavier than the top. The forms there are wider, the values slightly darker. It grounds the painting without making it feel weighted down. It's the visual equivalent of the shoreline itself, the place where everything settles before the next wave comes through. If that kind of movement resonates with you, Beach is available as a framed original, 30 × 30 inches, ready to hang. If you'd like to see it in your space before deciding, I'm happy to help with that. You can also browse the full coastal paintings collection for related works. View Beach →  |  Questions: shiloratner@gmail.com
Geometric abstract painting displayed on a white wall, showing structured form and color in an interior setting- Artist Shilo Ratner
La première impression compte plus que vous ne l'imaginez
Les décisions précoces agissent comme des contraintes, mais pas de manière restrictive. Elles créent une direction. Une ligne d'horizon placée légèrement plus haut ou plus bas modifie toute l'expérience spatiale. Une forme compressée change la façon dont l'espace environnant respire. Une couleur introduite trop tôt peut soit ancrer l'œuvre, soit l'aplatir. Ces choix ne restent pas en surface. Ils organisent tout ce qui suit. La peinture commence à se construire à partir de cette première condition.
Original geometric abstract painting by Shilo Ratner hanging in a home interior
Que se passe-t-il après l'achat d'un tableau ?
La plupart des conversations sur l'art s'arrêtent au moment de l'achat. Mais que se passe-t-il une fois qu'un tableau est rentré chez soi ? C'est là que la véritable histoire commence, et que la valeur de l'art original se révèle vraiment.
Sand Dunes diptych geometric coastal painting 10x20 acrylic on canvas by artist Shilo Ratner
Dune de sable – Peinture abstraite géométrique originale de paysage
Sand Dune est une nouvelle peinture diptyque abstraite géométrique, de 25,4 x 50,8 cm, inspirée par la vaste étendue tranquille des terrains ouverts. Chaque panneau fonctionne comme une composition autonome ; ensemble, ils forment un paysage continu dans des tons neutres chauds et des ocres doux.
Geometric abstract art collection guide - tips for art collectors by Shilo Ratner
Comment collectionner l'art abstrait géométrique : Le guide complet | Shilo Ratner
En tant qu'artiste dont le travail a été exposé dans des musées et représenté par des galeries respectées, j'ai vu comment une peinture peut transformer un espace, susciter la conversation et même devenir un investissement. Les collectionneurs débutants se demandent souvent si une œuvre « conviendra » à leur maison ou à leur style de vie, mais la vérité est : faites confiance à votre instinct.
Theophilus Brown monograph, Bay Area Figurative Movement, from Shilo Ratner's personal collection
Un thé avec Theophilus Brown
Une réflexion sur ma rencontre avec Theophilus Brown après avoir été sélectionné(e) pour l'exposition de portraits Art Space 712 à San Francisco.
Geometric Painter Shilo Ratner artist interview with Embrace Creatives
Art géométrique original : entretien avec Shilo Ratner
Dans cette interview accordée à Embrace Creatives, Shilo Ratner, artiste abstraite géométrique basée à New Haven, parle de son processus créatif, de ses influences artistiques, notamment Hilma af Klint et Agnes Martin, et de la philosophie qui sous-tend ses peintures géométriques contemplatives.
Contemporary abstract artist studio workspace with geometric paintings and meditation space
Art abstrait : Des débuts discrets en studio
Avant que la moindre touche de peinture n'atteigne la toile, mon atelier est silencieux. Comment la méditation est devenue le fondement de ma pratique de la peinture abstraite géométrique.
View From Trail 40x40 minimalist landscape painting Shilo Ratner
Philosophie de l'artiste : Art du paysage minimaliste | Shilo Ratner
L'art, c'est le lien. Découvrez la philosophie créative derrière les peintures paysagères minimalistes qui transforment les impressions de la nature en œuvres vastes et méditatives, conçues pour apporter une sophistication tranquille et un enracinement à votre espace.
Gallery view of geometric abstract landscape paintings by Shilo Ratner
L'influence de la nature sur mes peintures de paysages
La nature a un don incroyable pour nous ramener à l'essentiel, et cette influence est au cœur de mes œuvres inspirées des paysages. Plutôt que de peindre des scènes littérales, mon travail abstrait les formes naturelles en formes simplifiées et en compositions superposées.
Traces of Stillness — 6x6 inch original landscape collage series by Shilo Ratner, layered paper works on paper
Traces d'immobilité : Nouvelle série de collages de paysages
Traces of Stillness est une série de collages contemplatifs de 15x15 cm réalisés par Shilo Ratner, explorant des paysages montagneux sereins à travers des formes minimales, du papier superposé et une géométrie subtile. Œuvres originales sur papier disponibles dès maintenant.
Pockets Filled With Hope 5x10ft geometric abstract painting installation at Southern Connecticut State University
Plein les poches d'espoir SCSU !
Installation d'art public à grande échelle : Pockets Filled With Hope, une peinture abstraite géométrique de 1,5x3m de Shilo Ratner, installée à la Southern Connecticut State University School of Business.