Memorial Portraits Painted from the Photos You Have

When someone in your family has died and you want a painting of them, the hard part is usually the photo. It is small, or blurry, or black and white, or they are half hidden at the edge of a group shot. That is the normal starting point for this work. PaletteMomento is a hand-painting studio in Dafen Art Village, Shenzhen, China. We paint portraits by hand from whatever photos a family still has, we can combine several photos into one picture, and we send you photos of the finished canvas before it ships. Nothing leaves the studio until you tell us it looks like them.

The photo you have is the photo we work from

Most families arrive with one usable picture. A painter is not a printer. Where the photo goes soft, our painter makes a judgment about the shape of a cheek or the set of a mouth, and you get to correct that judgment while the painting is still wet. That is the real reason a painting handles a poor photo better than an enlargement does. If you want to see who holds the brush and in what order the layers go on, read how we paint.

What helps us most:

• Send several photos of the same person, including the bad ones. Three angles of a face tell us more than one sharp picture.
• Do not crop before you send. We can crop later. We cannot get back the pixels you cut away.
• If it is a paper print, lay it flat near a window and photograph it with your phone in daylight, no flash. A flatbed scan at the highest setting your scanner offers is better if you have access to one.
• Tell us in words what the picture does not show. “His eyes were hazel.” “She wore the blue scarf, not that one.” “He was heavier by then.”
• Keep your original print at home. A phone photo or a scan is enough. Never mail us the only copy.

Bringing someone into a picture they were never in

This is the request we hear most, and it is the one a painting does better than a photo edit. We combine several photos into one composition, so the person who is gone stands in a scene that never happened. Our painter matches the light direction, the scale of the heads and the skin tones by hand, which is why the result does not have the pasted-on look of a cut-and-paste edit.

We look at your photos before we start and tell you honestly whether they can be matched. A 1970s indoor snapshot with a hard flash does not sit believably next to a bright outdoor photo taken last summer. When that happens we say so and suggest a different composition, such as a portrait of him on his own beside a separate family piece.

Old family photographs, painted back into color

Old photographs reach us cracked, faded, sepia or spotted. We paint them as color canvases at whatever size the wall needs. The technical part is straightforward. The part that needs you is color.

A black and white photograph does not record eye color, hair color, the green of a dress or the red of a brick wall. If we guess, we are guessing. Before you order, call the oldest relative you have and write down what they remember. If nobody is left to ask, tell us and we will paint the portrait in warm grays and creams rather than invent colors your family would not recognize.

If you have been searching for an old photo turned into an oil painting, that is exactly what we can do. We paint in acrylic unless you ask for oil, and oil is available on request. Oil takes longer, because it dries slowly between layers, so tell us at the quote stage if that is what you want. Our page on how we quote lists what to send so the number comes back accurate the first time.

How the likeness gets checked before the painting is finished

1. Send the photos to our quote form or by email, with notes about who is who, what you want changed and what you want left alone.
2. WhatsApp replies are usually immediate; email replies usually arrive within 12 hours, Monday to Sunday, with what we can and cannot do with those particular photos.
3. You confirm the size, medium and finish. Terms are usually 50 percent deposit, balance before the goods are released.
4. Progress photos come to you while the painting is underway. Likeness notes are cheapest and easiest to fix at this stage, so speak up early.
5. Photos of the finished canvas come to you before anything is packed.
6. We pack and hand it to the carrier. If a piece has a defect that is our fault, we repaint it at our cost.

How long it takes, and when to choose somebody else

Painting takes 7 to 10 business days for one to five pieces. Express shipping by FedEx or DHL takes another 5 to 10 business days. Put both of those bands in your calendar and add them up for your own date. Oil takes longer than acrylic because oil dries slowly between layers. Heavy texture and pieces 36 by 48 inches and larger sit at the top of their painting band for the same reason, because thick paint has to dry between layers.

So we are not the studio for a funeral that is ten days away. If that is your deadline, a local print shop or a digital artist will serve you better, and we would rather tell you now than take your deposit.

The moments we do fit are the ones that come later: the first birthday without them, the first Christmas, the one year anniversary, a wedding that is eight months out, a house being cleared and a box of photographs found in it. Those calendars have room in them, and the painting is better for it.

Where a memorial painting actually goes in a family home

These do not get hung the way decorative art gets hung. Tell us the room and the wall and we will suggest a size from our 60 standard sizes, which run from 24 by 20 inches up to 80 by 60 inches, or paint to your own measurements at the same rate.

• The main wall in the living room. This is what people choose when the person was the center of the family. Most families want a canvas that fills a good part of the wall above the sofa rather than one floating small in the middle of it. Send us the wall width and we will come back with a size.
• A hallway, a stair wall or above a console. Something near the small end of our range, starting at 24 by 20 inches, suits a console or a stair wall. Tell us the wall and we will suggest a size.
• A bedroom or a quiet corner. Some families want the painting somewhere private rather than somewhere visitors will comment on it. That is a normal choice and you do not have to explain it to us.

One for each sibling

Two or three matching canvases is our most common memorial order. When they are painted together, at the same size, by the same painter, with the same colors mixed at the same time, they read as a set. Ordered months apart they drift, because a mixed color is never repeated exactly. If you think your brother or sister will want one too, ask them now and we will paint them side by side. Sets of two and three are part of our standard range.

Framed here, or framed by your own framer

You can have the canvas rolled in a tube, stretched on solid wood bars, or framed by us in black, white, wood, silver or gold. All five frame colors cost the same. Rolled is worth thinking about if you already have a local framer you trust, or if the piece is going to a relative in another country, because rolled canvas is the cheapest to ship. One thing to know: heavy texture ships stretched or framed, because thick paint should not be rolled.

Ordering on behalf of a family

Funeral homes, celebrants and photographers order these for families they are already looking after. You handle the photos and the brief with us, and the family receives the finished painting. There is no minimum order, so a single portrait is fine. If you place these regularly, the rate improves at 6 pieces and again at 21, and mixed designs count together, so a portrait and a landscape sit in the same count. Terms, packing and freight are set out on our trade page. Firms remembering a founder or a retiring partner on a wall should look at executive and institutional portraits instead.

Good fit, not a fit

Ordering from a studio you have never met

You are sending photographs of somebody you loved to a studio on the other side of the world. It is fair to be careful. Here is what is actually true about us.

We are in Dafen Art Village, Longgang District, Shenzhen. Every canvas is painted by hand, to order. We never print. WhatsApp replies are usually immediate; email replies usually arrive within 12 hours. Terms are usually 50 percent deposit with the balance due before the goods are released, and you can pay by wire transfer, PayPal or card. If a piece has a defect that is our fault, we repaint it at our cost.

On customs, paintings executed entirely by hand fall under HTS 9701, which carries a free base rate of duty into the United States. Other measures on China-origin goods can still apply, so confirm your own situation with a customs broker. Our terms are EXW our Shenzhen studio, freight is quoted separately at cost, and we do not add anything to the freight bill.

If you are commissioning for a living person instead, see custom portrait paintings. For general photo work see photo to painting, and for a wedding piece see wedding and anniversary paintings. Our catalog of figure paintings sits under figurative and human art.