When an artist draws or paints from memory, creative artwork will result. Some of our memories are scary, childish, fairytale-like and fun to chase and artistically express. Most often, artists may not understand what their artwork means until years later.

When artists are trying to capture another persons vision, by artistically expressing ideas other than their own ideas, its very difficult. Its equivalent to second guessing or finishing up another persons sentences. When artists are working for others, they are should thoroughly explore the wants of their clients prior to launching their commissioned artwork.

Get the clients vision in writing. The client could experience a change of vision or concept without even realizing it. This could throw the project off-balance or cause project creep. The client needs to accept financial responsibility for a change of venue, because this causes the artist to take extra steps to get back on-track and deliver as promised.

When money is part of the mix, relationships can sour before the project transpires. Take the extra steps to record financial agreements as to how to handle situations like this. Determine the cost of a kill fee upfront. There is no standard way of specifically coming up with how to deal with this other than trying to think ahead and deciding upon how the two parties are going to solve their problems from the onset. Make sure to put your plans and agreements in writingits easy to forget the original details of the planning stage or to know how to handle a change of plan. Document all agreements, and if need be and upon agreement, amend contracts as you go. (Revised 2/16/2006)