A man once asked me to give him a price for an oil portrait of his grandson. I thought for a while and said, because you're a friend I'll give you a discount. Live size, unframed, $900. (that was a $300-$600 cut) You'd have thought I'd asked for his arm! I told him that there was 16 hours of prep, mixing paints, making acetate drawings, etc., before even putting a brush into the paint. Then the painting itself would take between 200 and 250 hours. I then asked him, "Would you work for that little?" I never did the portrait. He actually told me that he thought it would be more in the $25 range. I told him to take his grandson to Walmart and have them take a picture.